About Us
OUR VISION
A society where everyone is able to cope with distress and has the opportunity to enjoy a happy life
OUR MISSION
We build resilience in communities by supporting adults, young people and children experiencing mental and emotional distress
OUR WORK
We do this by providing one to one counselling, group programmes and through community projects
WHERE WE WORK
We deliver counselling in Stockport and the surrounding regions. We counsel in our central ‘Beacon House’, in over 20 schools and in two other local charity centres.
OUR VALUES
Respectful – We do not judge; we listen and understand
Inclusive – We are accessible to everyone and treat everyone as an individual
Friendly- We’re warm, caring and we’ll support you
Professional- We care about the quality of what we do and we are committed to self-development
Can-do – We are proactive, passionate and find the best way to support you.
Self-Care – We practice what we preach, taking care of each other and ourselves.
HOW WE APPROACH OUR WORK
A focus on equality
We believe that everyone should have an equal chance of good emotional well-being. For that reason, we offer one-to-one counselling and group programmes either free of charge or on a donation basis. We believe that someone’s financial situation shouldn’t limit their access to high quality help and support.
Client centred
Anyone, at any point during their life, may face mental and emotional health problems. Our services can help individuals dealing with trauma, crises, or those struggling to cope with the stresses of life. People can transform and grow through counselling and our team has the training and expertise to respond to a range of situations and support clients in a way that suits them.
Making our services as accessible as possible
We believe that help should be readily available and easily accessible. Over the years we have been able to extend our reach into the community by counselling in a range of community centres across the borough, making help more accessible to Stockport’s diverse communities. We continue to find new ways to improve accessibility, opening access to new groups that were without therapeutic support. Some of our facilities have disability access.
Collaborative
We work in collaboration with other services to deliver our services. Collaborating with other organisations allows us to help more people and to reach a wider community across the borough. It also helps us to increase and sustain the benefits of support. For these reasons, we have a diverse range of partners across the community with whom we work with to deliver our services.
Responsive
We can shape our counselling to reach those who need help the most by using national, regional and local trends and data. Our work is outward facing; we design our services to meet the needs of the communities in Stockport and beyond.
Our History
Beacon counselling has been helping people lead fuller and more rewarding lives for 34 years. It was founded in 1984, with counselling initially conducted in doctors’ surgeries by volunteers. To this day a large proportion of our professional counsellors volunteer their time and expertise to help Beacon reach out to more people every year. The founding members of the charity who were a part of the ‘Churches Together’ in Bramhall wanted to create an organisation which provided a services to the local community, ensuring that everyone had an equal opportunity to access high quality counselling, regardless of their financial circumstance.
From the start Beacon has prided itself on the quality of all it has done; from monitoring and evaluation, to training and self-development. As a result, it has been sought after for placements by students on counselling courses. In 2008, Beacon Counselling won a Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, recognition of its contribution to the community over the years and in 2012 Beacon was awarded the prestigious GSK Impact award.