Care Counselling

About Care Counselling


Welcome to Care Counselling. Care Counselling is a project of East Belfast Mission, we serve the local community through providing professional counselling and psychotherapy. Care counselling was established in the year 2000 and is a department within the community projects of East Belfast Mission. All our Counsellors and Psychotherapists are BACP Members and/or working towards their BACP Accreditation, as such they all adhere to the BACP Ethical Framework. Our counselling and psychotherapy service is completely free of charge to the clients who refer into our service although donations are welcome.

As counsellors and psychotherapists, we strive to create an environment demonstrating Roger’s core conditions: Empathy, Congruence and Unconditional Positive Regard. A warm, safe and non-judgemental space for clients to explore challenging or disturbing thoughts and feelings and support them in their journey to find solutions to their difficulties. We work on building strong therapeutic relationships based on trust and respect, with people of all faiths and none, and we value the individual differences and backgrounds of all our clients.

We understand that everyone during their lifetime goes through difficult times. Sometimes these difficulties can get resolved without outside help. However, if your problems have been ongoing for a long time, are affecting your ability to work or function day to day, or are impacting on your relationships with others, talking to a professional counsellor or therapist could be of benefit.

If you feel that talking to a professional would be beneficial, we at Care Counselling would love to journey with you and support you in whatever way we can. You can self-refer into our service using the online referral form. Due to demand we usually have a waiting list so please be patient with us. When it is your turn, someone will be in touch by phone to assess your needs.


Frequently Asked Questions

We will then agree how and when you will meet with your therapist, either in person or by telephone. This will be at the same time, on the same day every week and each session will last for 50 minutes.

You will be offered an initial 6 sessions. There may be the opportunity to avail of further sessions which you can discuss with your counsellor. Please note that additional sessions are also dependent on our waiting lists.

The sessions take pleace on the ground floor near reception of the Skainos building. Please speak to reception when you arrive for your appointment. The Skainos Centre, 239 Newtownards Road, Belfast, BT4 1AF.

Just to name a few these are some of the problems likely to be helped by counselling: Depression and low mood, Bereavement, grief and loss, Anxiety and stress, Relationship and interpersonal problems, Abuse issues, Faith and spiritual issues, Personality issues, Low self-esteem

In our service we predominately use an integrated approach. This allows us use whichever approach is best for you according to your needs. This may include Humanistic - Person Centred approach, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) or Psychodynamic approach.

What our service users say

“Having psychological therapy made me realise that bottling up my feelings was not the way to go. Working with my therapist helped me feel I was not alone, that I was not going crazy and that there were things I could do to overcome the problems I was having.”

- Amanda, Belfast

“Cognitive behavioural therapy has really helped me to get my problems into perspective. I only wish I had known sooner that therapy would have such a positive impact on my life!”

- Paul, Belfast

“Therapy really helped me to learn to cope with the distress I was feeling and for the first time in a long time I began to see a future for myself.”

- Sarah, Castlereagh

“Therapy really helped me to learn to cope with the distress I was feeling and for the first time in a long time I began to see a future for myself.”

Volunteering with us

Care Counselling occasionally offers clinical placements to counsellors in training.

To register your interest please send a C.V. to our Counselling Manager.

Email my C.V.

N.B: While our service is self-referral please note that applications which are high risk or in crisis will not be processed as we are not equipped to provide this level of care. To avail of our service you must be able to engage in counselling and have capacity for things to get a little worse before they get better for you to benefit.

To effectively manage our waiting list, counselling referrals will be held on our waiting list for a period of six months, if you have not heard from us within six months please re-submit a new application. If you are in crisis or currently self-harming, please contact one of the below emergency services.

Need Emergency Support?

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