Worthing charity hopes move to new base will help it become more visible to the community

Worthing Counselling Centre is a small charity that is building new partnerships in the town to help build on its work of the past 30 years.

The new centre in South Street, Tarring, was officially opened on Friday with the unveiling of a sign by chief executive and head of clinical services, Emma Castledine.

She said: "Worthing Counselling Centre is a small charity that has been offering support for the residents of Worthing and surrounding areas for over 30 years.

"Worthing Counselling Centre started in 1983 at Offington Park Methodist Church and we were with them for many, many years, until Covid hit.

"Like many places, we weren't able to use that any more. So we were in a position of what are we going to do, where are we going to be?

"Luckily, we had a trustee from South Downs Leisure who had a chat with the people over there and they offered us two offices in the most beautiful grounds at Field Place.

"So, we have been there ever since and we have had an absolutely brilliant time, and I think we have forged some really positive relationships from that.

"But we did find that we were outgrowing them, we didn't have enough space. So, it was time to look for a new home and again, thanks to networking, we found one, as we had one of our members of staff who worked for Relate.

"The building on the side of West Worthing Baptist Church was built for marriage guidance, which then became Relate. They left it in Covid, so we were really, really lucky to be offered that opportunity by the church.

"In the past year, we have offered over 2,000 counselling sessions to people in Worthing and the outer areas. Counselling is actually something that is quite hard to come by for people. There is a lot of private counselling but for those people who can't afford that it is very, very limited in health services unfortunately.

"We do offer low cost counselling to people in the areas of Worthing and a little bit further out now, because we do offer online therapy as well as face-to-face.

"We are always striving to get funding to offer as low-cost counselling as we can and we have forged some really fantastic partnerships. We have been working with West Sussex Mind and we got lottery funding to work with their 16 to 25-year-olds, and recently I got some funding to work with 16 to 25-year-olds who are neurodivergent.

"The charity is also working with Andy's Angels to support children who have suffered a bereavement in their family."