Cancer Counselling Trust

How it all began

When, in March 1999, CancerBACUP (now Cancerbackup) closed their counselling service in order to redirect resources to information work, their team of specialist counsellors and psychotherapists decided to build on their combined experience and skills to establish an independent counselling centre. This is the team, most of whom still work for the charity, that founded The Cancer Counselling Trust and played a key role in its development.

From March 1999 to September of that year we met fortnightly to develop our vision for a responsive and ethical counselling service for cancer patients and those close to them. We decided to employ Christine Bradler, who had been the co-ordinator at Cancerbackup, as our only paid team member. The rest of the team, whether working as counsellors or working on development, pledged to give their time without remuneration and did so for eighteen months.

As well as the regular fortnightly meetings we also split into sub-committees to establish policies for the ethical running of the service, essential outreach, the writing of the Business Plan, becoming a Company Limited by Guarantee and applying to the Charity Commission for charitable status. Out of our experience of working within the voluntary sector, we decided that the following were key elements in our vision for an ethical service:

That the service would be staffed by qualified and paid specialist counsellors and psychotherapists, supported by specialist supervisors.
That The Cancer Counselling Trust would commit to transparency at all levels of the organisation from trustees right through to volunteers.
That there would be regular organisational days when all those involved in the work of CCT would meet to address the development and health of the charity and the individuals and groups within it.
That the benefit of clients would be at the heart of all decisions made in respect of the running and development of the charity.

Once our Business Plan was finished, we were ready to begin. We received our first donation, £1500 from a Quaker Meeting House which was followed by our first fundraising event which raised a further £1300. We rented space at the Gestalt Centre and offered four hours of counselling a week. By the end of November, we had seen 13 clients. We also applied to Reach, an organisation that places professionals as volunteers in the voluntary sector, for a business manager. Richard Conradi contacted us and we appointed him as co-ordinating manager to work with Jane Fior who was development manager. We now began to look for Trustees.

In February 2000, we formalized the various groups within CCT (trustees - already established), management committee, managing co-ordinator (Richard Conradi), development co-ordinator (Jane Fior), counselling service co-ordinator (Christine Bradler), company secretary (Jane Fior), treasurer (Dilys Stinson), clinical responsibility (Liz Hopkinson, a therapist who was one of the Trustees).

In 2000, we received our charitable status, moved into Noel Road, in Islington, and appointed Dilys Stinson to work alongside Christine Bradler as counselling co-ordinator (job-share). We joined the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy as an organizational member; set up our group of Friends, headed by Professor Michael Baum; implemented our evaluation system, and appointed a supervisor for client work. We were included in the Whitbread Charity of the Year Awards both as an organisation and in the individual category (Jane Fior).

In 2001, we continued to build up our profile. We were selected by two city firms for their charitable giving and their donations gave us the necessary start-up funding to further develop our work. By 2002, our client numbers had risen substantially. On average we provided 42 sessions per week. Our telephone counselling service continued to expand so that we were now working nationally as well as locally. In 2003 we held our first conference which was attended by more than 100 delegates from all over the UK. We also received a Macmillan Cancer Support grant to further develop our telephone counselling service. In 2004, we expanded our service to include counselling for couples. We also started to provide supervision for senior nurses at a large cancer charity, and ran workshops to support health professionals in their work. Vital Spark, a City of London charitable organisation, became very active in helping us to grow and develop by holding fundraising events, by giving us advice and by donating IT equipment. From then on, we continued to expand. In 2006 we received Department of Health funding to support the service as well as generous help from a number of grant making trusts and in 2007 we saw our 1000th client. That autumn we also launched our first specialist cancer counselling training

That The Cancer Counselling Trust has come so far in such a short time is because a great many people have given time and energy to its development. Whether as funders, Trustees, volunteers or Friends, we owe them all our sincere appreciation and thanks. The Founders who seven years ago and against all the odds made a dream a reality are still active in the charity and, together with Shelley Gurney and Helen Storey, two members of the original CancerBACUP team and Kathleen Sheridan Russell a former CancerBACUP colleague, have recently been appointed Honorary Members in recognition of their passion, commitment, persistence and vision in the establishing of The Cancer Counselling Trust.

THE FOUNDERS

Tony Ambrose, Alice Bulman, Christine Bradler, Clare Crombie, Jane Fior, Jonathan Hartley, Elizabeth Jacobs, Sue Soave, Dilys Stinson

Stay in touch

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The Cancer Counselling Trust offers a series of free, confidential sessions, both face to face and over the phone to anyone affected by a cancer diagnosis. You do not need a doctorâ€™s referral and we try to keep waiting times to a minimum.

To enquire about counselling please call us on 020 7843 2292 and talk to the counselling co-ordinator to see how we may be able to help.