Investment theme: Improving health and well-being
Purpose:
to provide an additional 5 hours a week of counselling to 10 women (8 sessions each). for 3 months
Year of grant: 30/4/2020
FR Number: FR-0053225
Amount awarded: £2554
Location: EDINBURGH
Full description
The activities Feniks seeks to fund through this application are the following:
- 5 additional hours of counselling per week for vulnerable CEE women whose mental health will be adversely affected by the Covid 19 lockdown and associated factors such as pre-existing mental health problems, domestic abuse and suicidal ideation;
- 3.5 hours of management support per week for the counselling/psychotherapy team for a period of 5 months;
- Work from home expenses for counsellors and psychotherapists including telephone and internet costs: £60
The project activities Feniks aims to fund through this application are the counselling sessions provided to CEE women adversely affected by the Covid 19 pandemic lockdown. The service users supported by Feniks are overwhelmingly affected by moderate to severe mental health issues and domestic abuse, all of which will be exacerbated by social isolation measures currently imposed indefinitely. By securing an additional 5 hours of counselling for women per week for 5 months, Feniks will be able to expand service provision online and over the phone to areas of Scotland that were not previously served by the organisation. This will help to ensure that vital support reaches vulnerable women throughout Scotland in their native language, thus reducing feelings of isolation and improving their sense of resilience, well-being, and overall mental health.
To efficiently and effectively deliver this intervention, additional support from the CEO is critical to ensure the mental well-being of the counsellor(s) delivering the sessions. Also affected by lockdown measures, Feniks counsellors required to work from home are exposed to traumatic stories with little opportunity to debrief through the support of the Feniks team that would normally be present in the office space. It is therefore essential to increase the capacity of the CEO as the senior officer in the organisation to be able to respond to the well-being needs of the counselling team.
To ensure the safe delivery of this intervention, the counselling team and the CEO of Feniks will also have access to the support of the Board of Directors. Two members of the Board of Directors of Feniks are specialists in the area of domestic abuse and violence against women, therefore ensuring their capacity to be able to support the organisation to deliver this intervention. The Board of Directors is happy to provide this support and any additional interventions free of charge.
