Counselling

Our counselling service is available to support your employees through a range of mental health challenges including anxiety and depression, stress and PTSD. If you have concerns about an employee and feel they need support, you can contact our team for advice on whether counselling would be the most suitable intervention.

Counselling is one of the most effective methods of addressing and resolving mental health challenges and very often simply being able to speak to an expert in confidence about their issues will begin to help the employee overcome them. Employees who are able to access timely support are shown to be much more likely to return to work, and as counselling can help to build resilience, it also means that they are less likely to experience sickness absence in the future.

Accessing our counselling service is simple. First, we will ask you to complete our referral form and provide evidence of the employee’s consent. We will then arrange an initial assessment to ensure that the employee is suitable for treatment and to assess how my sessions may be needed. You will then have the opportunity to accept or revise the recommendations, after which we will arrange the sessions and provide you with the halfway and outcome reports. The outcome report may include recommendations for further treatment or work adjustments, and it is your decision as to whether these are implemented. The employee is then discharged but can opt to continue treatment with the counsellor, either paying for this themselves or sharing the cost with the employer.

NHS waiting times are currently 18 months to 2 years depending on the area so by the time your employee is able to receive counselling, their issues may have become more difficult to resolve meaning that they require a much greater level of support before they feel able to return to work. You will also have no oversight of the process and the employee may not have sought treatment in the first place or may have opted to end treatment early.

An EAP is a great place to start when there are concerns for an employee’s mental health, however, sessions are usually limited to a maximum of 6 per year and this may not be sufficient or may have already been used. The employee may also speak to a different counsellor each time making it harder to maintain momentum. Our counselling service provides a one-to-one relationship with an experienced and accredited counsellor and is available for as long as the employee requires it.

D4Healh’s counselling service is unique because it gives the employer the ability to stay informed of progress without breaching the confidentiality of the relationship which is so key to giving the employee confidence to speak openly. Our counsellor will provide a report to the line manager at the halfway and completion points of the sessions, and this report will advise how well they feel the employee is progressing as well as their latest assessment scores so that the employer can understand both qualitatively and quantitatively how the employee is benefiting from the service.