Joanne has been with the Gaddum Centre four to five months and is the Team Leader for IAPT counselling. The talking therapy services are based in GP surgeries across Manchester providing 12 weekly 1:1 sessions with clients referred by their GP.
Also, a specialist service for BAME clients is offered from the Roby in Hulme, with counsellors who speak various languages. Many of the asylum seekers and refugees accessing this service have been through very traumatic events and often have post-traumatic stress disorder. The IAPT service offers Cognitive Behavioural Therapy / Person centred and Integrative models of counselling and also hosts student placements from Manchester and Salford.
Talking therapies are really effective for mild to moderate psychological difficulties. A recent report showed that 60% of Gaddums’ clients have seen a reliable improvement in their mental health after accessing IAPT at Gaddum. This has a massive impact because mental health affects the whole person.
Joanne said, “The feedback we get is that it makes a massive difference to people’s lives. There’s just 12 weeks of therapy but a big impact because of the 1:1 relationship that’s built up. The first response used to be medication but now it’s recognised that talking therapies are highly effective.
I talked to an older lady from Gorton who said that counselling wasn’t something that her generation would have considered, but she was so glad she took up the offer following the bereavement of her partner. She said after the intervention she was ready to move forward and counselling had helped her to get to a stage where she didn’t feel ‘stuck’ in grieving.”
The Gaddum Centre is an independent local charity established in 1833 with a long history of providing quality services in the field of health and social care.