Counselling for Social Change (C4SC) provide online and phone counselling for activists, campaigners, and social changers.
Post-traumatic distress and burnout are serious issues for activists. The combination of police brutality, repression and taking on too much work, alongside the overwhelming nature of the changes we are trying to achieve can sometimes become too much. Add in the day-to-day stuff we all have to deal with, and it can become hard to sustain our work.
Many of us feel guilty if we take time out and carry on for much longer than we should, causing greater and longer lasting mental health problems but we need to take our mental health seriously to to ensure stronger and more sustainable movements.
C4SC was set up by people with years of experience in frontline activism (Earth First!, Climate Camp, Fitwatch etc). We have trained counsellors with an understanding of activism to support you. We are currently offering up to 12 sessions.
Counselling might seem risky as an activist. We are happy to talk to you about any concerns you have. However, here are a few tips which might help:
-
Counselling is confidential. There are legal limits to confidentiality which we will go through at the first session.
-
You don’t have to give us your real name.
-
Don’t name others involved in your affinity group, actions etc.
-
If talking about activism, try and keep things general (especially where it might involve illegal activities). We don’t need specific details of actions, we’re here to deal with the emotional impact.
-
Don’t give us any details of future actions, especially if they are not in the public domain.
Where possible (depending on funding) we try to provide free counselling. When funding is unavailable we charge £25 per session. If you can afford to donate something towards the counselling, it will make our funding go further.
Please contact us for further information:
info@counsellingforsocialchange.org.uk
01736 364 722
Keep up to date with what we’re doing on Twitter and Facebook: