Aviva Community Fund provided £1,243 of match funding
Thrive - Domestic Abuse Counselling Service
Sittingbourne, England, United Kingdom
Aim
Thrive Counselling - with your help we can support survivors recover from the trauma of Domestic Abuse
We are Thrive
A small and mighty team of five counsellors working in Kent supporting victims of Domestic Abuse recover and rebuild their lives.
We're specialists in Trauma Informed Counselling, providing long term support.
What we do
We support families - especially women and children who have fled domestic abuse.
We work in refuges, schools and community settings.
We provide 121, group and family therapy.
All are Counsellors have areas of specialism, are highly qualified and experienced.
What could this fund mean?
Since COVID our waiting list has grown and is the longest it's ever been.
£10,000 could provide 400 counselling sessions for families, including 60 attachment and bonding sessions for mothers, babies and children.
These services are the difference between surviving and thriving.
Imagine - a child victim of Domestic Abuse
Imagine being woken in the middle of a night by the sounds of shouting and crying. You’re 6 years old and the shouts are from your Daddy and the cries are from your Mummy.
Imagine this happening almost every night for as long as you can remember.
Every night wondering if the shouting will end in a thud or a bang, or worse still complete silence!
Imagine every morning coming down to breakfast wondering why Mummy winces as she reaches for your cereal.
Then one day it ends.
You heard sirens last night and Mummy says that you won’t be seeing Daddy for a long time.
Imagine then having to go to school and whilst trying to focus on your lessons you hear shouting. You know it's your head teacher shouting and you know they’re telling off the boy from next doors classroom but fear consumes you and you are unable to concentrate on anything else. You have to stay alert to the shouting, it's a reflex you have learnt. You have to be aware because maybe it'll come closer or maybe it'll get worse or maybe there will be silence! Your school work suffers.
Imagine then being in your gymnastics class and that older girl pushes her way in front of you again! For a moment you freeze and then the next thing you remember is being shouted at by your coach because you shoved the girl but you don’t remember that. Did you? You have been getting into lots of trouble recently.
Then one Tuesday morning you meet a lady from a place called Thrive. She comes every week with a whole case of toys. You think she must do magic because she understands everything, even the things Mummy gets confused with!
You start finding it easier to concentrate in class and you get into less trouble and your teacher and Mummy are always talking about how much you’re smiling now.
This is a story we hear time and time again at Thrive.
Children whose behavior suffers due to the traumatic experiences they have experienced. Sadly without the right kind of support these children do not always recover.
They are often misdiagnosed with medical conditions or simply labelled as ‘naughty children’ and the PTSD they actually suffer from is missed.
Research tells us this can have a hugely detrimental impact on the childs life, they are more likely to have mental health difficulties, suffer from substance misuse problems, struggle with education or employment to name but a few.
By supporting Thrive you’re supporting our Counsellors to help ensure the right support is offered at the right time for Survivors of Domestic Abuse.
Giving them the opportunity to Thrive and not merely Survive.
This project successfully funded on 7th October 2020