Telephone and video counselling with Listening Ear
Listening Ear is now delivering all of its counselling remotely, using telephone or video calls. If you are currently on our waiting list for counselling, we will be contacting you to offer telephone or video support.
Some people are initially apprehensive at the idea of counselling over the phone, but our experience shows that, once it has been tried, many actually prefer it.
Below, we’ve collected some of the comments we’ve received from children, young people and adults since starting the service in June 2020.
What to expect
You will be given a scheduled time for your assessment or counselling session.
Try to make sure you can take the call in a quiet area of your home or workplace – somewhere where you won’t be disturbed for the duration of the call, and where you have a strong signal if you are using a mobile.
If you prefer to ‘see’ your counsellor, we can offer video calls via Zoom. We will send you details of how to access this, but you will need a smart mobile phone or PC / laptop equipped with a camera.
Always let us know if something crops up that means you can’t make the session.
“I didn’t fancy counselling over the phone at first, but I’ve actually found it’s more convenient to have the sessions at home, in familiar surroundings.”
“Thank you again for calling, it has made such a difference with that little bit of extra contact. [My son] said he enjoyed it.”
“It felt unusual ‘opening up’ on the phone, then I got to know the counsellor and relaxed into it.”
“I can see a massive difference from the support and adapted resources of telephone contact. Thank you.”
“I had to change from face to face sessions when lockdown happened and found it easy to have phone sessions since I already knew the counsellor. If I was new, I might prefer video sessions.”
“Thank you for ensuring support was continued.”
“This offer of support continued and built trust for [my son] to lead to him to open up and disclose some self harm. All felt this helped with his overall confidence.”
A young person trying out telephone and then video counselling said:
“When my Mum said I was going to have telephone counselling, I worried about what I would talk about and if I would like it. At my fist appointment, the counsellor explained everything to me and I felt less worried. My counsellor talked me through what the appointment could be like but gave me lots of choices which felt good. She was really nice to talk to so I decided after 2 weeks to try Zoom as I felt I had the confidence to give this a go. We’ve carried on using this and we’ve done some worksheets together. I knew that if I didn’t like the Zoom sessions I could go back to telephone appointments so I’m really glad I tried both.”
An adult client told us:
“The telephone counselling has surprised me as I thought at first I just wouldn’t want to do my counselling like this. I’d had counselling in the past and it was face to face in a room so that’s what I really wanted again. I had my first session over the phone and was still unsure. The following week I gave it another go and it felt like I could really talk more. I came off the phone with my counsellor looking forward to the next week.”