Referrals

If you would like to have counselling you can contact us directly by phone, text or email or you can come to our centre personally and one of Reception Administrators will register you for the service. It doesn’t take long and your contact information is all stored securely and confidentially. Once you have registered you will be offered an appointment with one of our qualified, experienced counsellors so that we can get an idea of how best to help you. You will then go on our waiting list to see a counsellor for your offer of up to 12 weekly counselling sessions. There are different ways you could receive your counselling sessions depending on what is best for you and your circumstances.

Other Referrals

We welcome enquiries from parents, carers and professionals to find out more about our service and how it works. However, we need a conversation with the young person to obtain their permission to take their personal information and to register them for the service. It’s fine if they might like your support during this first phone call, we understand it can sometimes be a bit daunting for some people to make the call.

GDPR

We encourage young people to self-refer. All signposted referrals require the permission of the young person to enable us to register them for the service. Most young people who used our services in 2019/20 were signposted via their GP, CAMH , the Wellbeing Service and other NHS mental health services. We also receive signposted referrals from schools, drug & alcohol agencies, police, local authorities, housing and voluntary & community sector.

Keeping your information safe and secure is important to us. Our service is fully compliant with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and we are registered with Information Commissioners Office (ICO). Privacy Policy and Statement

 Bedfordshire Open Door and P2R often work jointly to meet the needs of young people aged 18 – 25 with drug and alcohol issues. When P2R refers a client to Bedfordshire Open Door, both agencies quickly establish good boundaries to continue to safeguard and improve the clients’ well-being. P2R focus on harm-reduction and relapse prevention, whilst Bedfordshire Open Door offer one to one counselling and multi-agency signposting and support. “As a are result the two agencies are able to support the client in a holistic way leading to improved family relationships, addressing housing needs, referral to CMHT, identifying education opportunities, referral on to ICASH for sexual health and building up trust, confidence and self-esteem.”

Partnership working – Path2Recovery – adult drugs and alcohol service

“Always been really polite and easy to talk to. Feels like a really safe place to vent about things that aren’t easy to talk about. It’s really nice to open up and not be judged about what I’ve been through and the choices I made.”

Client aged 17yrs

“I feel clients at BOD really benefit from the in-house referrals within the Counselling Team and this provides more choice and opportunities to develop life skills and strategies as they transition towards adulthood.”

Cath, High Needs Specialist Counsellor

“After an initial Drop-In at BOD I noticed changes happening. She was looking forward to every session, was motivated, committed and more relaxed. This improvement brought new confidence including engagement with Princes’ Trust. Re-engaging after a few months for CBT after our GP advised this would help. This work was completed by another counsellor in the Bedfordshire Open Door team and was also very beneficial.”

Grandparent