We've launched! After many months of hard work behind the scenes, we are delighted to re-launch our service as a non-profit community mental health service, together with our new website at www.empathyproject.org.uk
We are a small team of counsellors and psychotherapists who are passionate about making open-ended, high-quality counselling and therapy accessible and affordable to everyone.
What started as a small private practice in 2022 grew to become Southampton Counselling Practice as a way for a small group of therapists to reduce costs and support each other. But with the rising cost of living affecting so many of our clients, we decided it was time to do something different and find other ways to help.
The Empathy Project is a Community Interest Company Limited By Guarantee. That's a very long way of saying that we're a non-profit. We do not have shares, and if we make a profit we are required by law to reinvest 100% of it into the good of our community.
We've added several new features with our re-launch, including a completely overhauled booking system and website, which makes responding to enquiries much faster, reaching more people who need our help, and making it easier to book and pay for sessions.
We'll soon also be launching our very-own app that will let you speak confidentially to your therapist as well as access loads of mental health resources from the palm of your hand.
A big part of our mission is to be financially sustainable. That means making sure we have enough of our own income that we are not totally reliant on donations or grants, as most charities are, and so we charge a fee for our counselling sessions.
We've made every effort to set the price as low as possible, whilst remaining at a lower-cost than many private providers, such as BetterHelp or expensive health insurance companies. At the same time, we have to manage our costs realistically to make sure we can keep the lights on and pay our staff a fair wage for the valuable and important work they do.
But our real passion is our Community Fund. That's the pot of money we put all of our profits, fundraising, donations and grants into. It's from there that we are able to reduce the cost of our individual counselling by nearly half, making therapy far more accessible and affordable for people in financial hardship.
You can apply to our Community Fund here. We ask you to complete a short form describing your financial situation, and our directors will periodically go through these and decide how many people we can afford to assist. We use an honesty-based system and do not means-test or check what you write, we just ask you to be as honest as you can. We treat all applications fairly and without discrimination, on a case-by-case basis.
We actually make a loss by running these sessions, but our hope in the long-term is we'll be able to provide hundreds of sessions each year this way, and eventually make some counselling completely free for those who have no other option.
Have you been thinking about having counselling but don't know where to start? You can complete our easy self-referral form here, and we'll match one of our therapists to you who we think will make the best fit. You can also book directly yourself through our website.
We're excited for this new chapter of our journey, and we're delighted to be taking it with you. Thanks for listening.
Warm regards,
Tom Bulpit MBACP
Managing Director & Psychotherapist