Soul Matters Counselling is expanding its reach.
The Cloverdale not-for-profit counselling service has partnered with the Cloverdale Community Kitchen to offer free counselling to the needy.
“Beginning the first week of October, Soul Matters will have two of our interns working one day a week at the Cloverdale Community Kitchen in partnership with Pacific Community Church,” said Elsje Hannah, co-founder and supervisor for Soul Matters.
She said she hopes the services will augment the work the Community Kitchen is already doing.
“Now, in partnership with Soul Matters Counselling, we will have two student counsellors on-site one day a week for private sessions, servicing patrons who are already utilizing the amenities of Cloverdale Community Kitchen.”
Community Kitchen director Matthew Campbell said he’s excited to see the program kick off.
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“We have always been looking for ways to help our clients with more than just food, more than just the basics, and some of them need counselling,” said Campbell.
He said when Soul Matters called up to propose the program, they jumped at the opportunity.
“We were very excited,” he said. “This will help out clients that use the food bank, our meals programs, and our homeless clients too.”
Campbell said they’ll put up notices this week and hand out flyers to all guests.
“I think it’ll take some time to build up trust before our clients will use the services,” explained Campbell. “For the first few months, they’ll be looking and watching, and then maybe someone will test it out. But it will definitely be a few months before people build up that trust.”
Soul Matters Counselling is nestled into office space in the Healing Place Counselling Centre on 176th in the Dale Building.
“Soul Matters was launched eight years ago to meet the need for affordable counselling,” Kaitlyn Gisler, admin support for Soul Matters, told the Cloverdale Reporter earlier this year. “Many private practice rates are inaccessible and government supported therapy means a long and growing waitlist.”
Soul Matters Counselling opened an office in Cloverdale in May. They can be reached via 250-221-2015 or by visiting their website soulmatters.ca.
editor@cloverdalereporter.com
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