COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS
1. Domestic Abuse (DA)
How to Report Domestic Abuse
Call 999 if you’re in immediate danger, call. If you’re unable to speak, press 55 on your mobile keypad.
If you’re not in immediate danger, DON’T JUST LEAVE! Google: Domestic Abuse Services in my area and contact your local DA service for advice, support and safety planning first. Remember to erase call logs / browser history for your own safety. See Women's Aid tips for covering your tracks online.
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What Percentage of Domestic Abuse Victims are Male?
It’s thought that 1 in 6 men will experience Domestic Abuse in their adult lifetime. Men are far less likely to report though, and statistics can only be gathered from reports made so the actual figure is likely to be far higher.
For help and support for domestic abuse please see our DA page and Resources for useful services to contact.
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2. Types of Counselling / Types of Therapy
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What is Counselling?
Counselling is a safe, confidential space in which you can safely explore your thoughts and feelings with someone who is trained to listen.
How to get Counselling
In Swale, there are free talking therapy services for adults available via self-referral. Ask your GP for their contact details.
For specific issues such as bereavement or relationship issues, please see our resources page for details of specialist services.
If you want counselling for a child or young person, speak first to their school. If they don’t have their own counsellor, they may be able to access a service from us. If you’d like to talk to someone about whether your child should access counselling or not, get in touch with us for a chat.
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What is Person Centred Counselling / Person Centred Therapy / Person Centered Approach?
Person-Centred counselling does exactly what it says on the tin! It focusses on the PERSON, not the issue. We use person-centred methods because they give people long-lasting strategies that can be applied in lots of different situations rather than focussing on solving a particular single issue.
What is Child Centred Approach
Child-centred is much the same as person-centred only it uses much more therapeutic intervention than direct therapy. It’s a model designed around the child’s needs and strengths to improve their outcomes – emotionally, academically and holistically.
What is CBT?
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. A type of therapy that aims to change unhelpful behaviours by changing how you think about those behaviours or their triggers.
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What is Systemic Therapy?
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Systemic Therapy is a type of therapy that deals with patterns in relationships. It views everything over 3 generations to identify patterns and it’s interested in how useful those patterns are to the functioning of whole ‘system’ (the family). It’s roots are in Anthropology – the study of people, rather than in psychiatry or psychology – the study of behaviour
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What is Holistic Therapy?
In this context, holistic means the whole person and everything that affects them. We start with the person and work outwards, finding out everything we can from them in order find the right way to support them.
What is Family Therapy?
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Family Therapy is a type of therapy that deals with the family as a whole rather than as a collection of individuals. Family therapy may happen with all family members at once or with individual family members at different times but the outcome is focussed on resolving an issue that affects the whole family, not just one person.
What is Systemic Family Therapy?
Systemic Family Therapy is Family Therapy that takes into account relationship patterns and beliefs over three generations. Systemic Therapy may be delivered by a Systemic Team of professionals from different disciplines in the room with the whole family at the same time, or by a single therapist working systemically.
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What is Trauma Informed Practice? / What is Trauma Therapy?
Trauma-Informed Practice recognises that therapy can, in and of itself, be re-traumatising for someone who has experienced trauma. Trauma-Informed practitioners are respectful of client’s boundaries and are aware of the potential impact of not doing so. This is particularly relevant for children who have no idea that they’ve been traumatised.
3. Counselling Terms / Therapy Terms
What is NLP?
Neuro-Linguistic Pathways are patterns of brain behaviour. The brain is constantly changing so it’s possible to ‘re-wire’ those patterns which are unhelpful or unhealthy.
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What is Emotional Health?
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Emotional Health is your general feeling of wellbeing and wellness. It’s also the quality of things like your resilience and attachments – both of which are important to forming healthy relationships. Emotional health can be affected by lots of things – past or present – and should be looked after just as you look after your physical health
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What is CAMHS?
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. A Mental Health Service for children and young people with a discernible mental health condition.
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What is Therapeutic Intervention?
Therapeutic Intervention is a term used mostly for behaviour modification in children. It’s a plan that aims to modify a specific unwanted behaviour using child-centred therapeutic techniques. A therapeutic intervention is delivered in the same way by everybody who’s involved (teachers, parents, grandparents etc) and it is a specific set of responses to a particular behaviour. It ISN’T therapy or counselling, it’s a different approach to responding to unwanted behaviour.
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What is Childhood Trauma? / What are Adverse Childhood Experiences?
Childhood trauma is any traumatic event that happens in childhood. Sometimes referred to as ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences). Childhood trauma can have lifelong implications if unresolved; there are lots of adults who are diagnosed with Mental Health conditions or Personality Disorders because their childhood trauma is unresolved.
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4. General Questions
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What is Autism?
Autism is a neurodifference. Autistic people’s brains work differently to non-autistic people’s brains. Neither is better or worse, they’re just different – a bit like Apple and Android.
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What is ASD / ASC?
Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Another way of describing Autism. Now being replaced with ASC – Autistic Spectrum Condition because it is understood that Autism isn’t a disorder, it’s a difference.
What is Advocacy?
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Advocacy is giving a voice to those who don’t feel heard or who are unable to speak for themselves. Advocacy means putting the needs of the person at the centre of decision-making about that person. It may also mean supporting people to understand a specific system or process.
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What is a Risk Assessment?
A risk assessment is a process that considers the level of risk to a person if they engage in a particular activity.
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What is Early Intervention / Early Help?
The sooner a problem or issue is resolved, the better. Early Intervention is about identifying potential issues based on patterns of known behaviour and aiming to prevent instead of cure, or at least intervene before the issue becomes too entrenched.
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What is EHCP?
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Education Health Care Plan. These used to be called Statements of Educational Need and they outline any additional support a child might need in school.
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What is Supervision?
Supervision is like professional therapy. It’s an opportunity for professionals who deal with high-stress or Child Protection caseloads to gain practice advice and guidance as well as offloading their thoughts and feelings in a confidential environment. It’s understood that CP work takes an immense personal toll on those who work with it and Supervision is designed to ease that burden.
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What Does MARAC Stand for?
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Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference. It’s a panel of professionals from different disciplines such as Police, Social Services, Housing, Probation and Domestic Abuse services who meet regularly to discuss high-risk Domestic Abuse cases and make professional plans to keep families safe.
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What is a CIC?
A CIC is a Community Interest Company. We are a limited company but the services we deliver are for the benefit of the community not shareholders. We don’t make huge profits and we are allowed to fundraise to finance our services.