Huge Thank You to Sunderland Counselling Service for Building Self Belief’s Award

I was delighted to be a guest at Sunderland Counselling Services AGM on 30^th November 2023 and help them celebrate their 40^th anniversary. As CEO of Building Self-Belief, it was a great opportunity to see the timeline of how SCS has developed and evolved over the past 40 years. It was an invaluable lesson in how to adapt to survive in the ever-changing charity sector.

Lessons in Growth

The Sunderland Counselling Service were established in 1983, an era in the Northeast that is defined by deindustrialisation and mass unemployment. They began as a bereavement service and they have branched into many different services and approaches since then. They offer a great insight into the importance of embracing change, the need to be financially viable – all while delivering a fabulous service to an increasingly needy population.

Why Building Self-Belief?

Their remit for selecting the recipients of their 40^th Anniversary Award was to select a charity from each of the Northeast areas that they serve. We are delighted to be the recipient of the award for Co Durham. We are using their award of £10,000 towards providing services to hard-to-reach communities- in this case Tow Law in Co Durham. The programmes we are delivering at Tow Law are a youth club with hot food, and a job club to support adults back to work. SCS’s Chair, Eileen Watt, told me how rewarding it was for them as a board to have the opportunity to select five charities to give a grant to and how liberating this felt to be able to help other charities in such a meaningful way.

A Generous Invite

As part of the SCS AGM programme, I was invited to speak and share information about Building Self-Belief and the work we do. Delivering such a speech is most generous offer as it allows us to share our message and engage with professionals about our services to a much wider and more varied audience.

The Beauty of Collaboration

In a further example of the beauty of collaboration, to support one of the adults at the Tow Law job club, funded by SCS, we used the Household Fund from the Co Durham Community Foundation to buy an attendee a bike, a helmet, and high viz jacket. What this fund has enabled us to do, is not only advise people about work, but to literally give them the means of getting employment by providing them with the transport they need and can rely on.

In a shared post on Facebook, the Co Durham Community Foundation state; ‘Schemes like this one change lives today and enrich the for tomorrow. Breaking down the barrier of a commuting opens up more choice when it comes to job hunting, gives people more freedom and independence,’

Working Together

The general feeling in the Northeast is that 40 years ago in 1983, things were pretty desperate, but there is a new sense of desperation, today. One thing that I have learnt is that working together is ultimately, more efficient, more effective and most heart-warming.