This is an HTML version of an attachment to the Freedom of Information request 'Mental Health'.



 
 
 
 
The Counselling Service 
 
Annual Report 
2014/15 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

link to page 2 link to page 3 link to page 4 link to page 4 link to page 5 link to page 8 link to page 9 link to page 10 link to page 12 link to page 12 Contents 
 
Contents ........................................................................................................................... 2 
Counselling Service Team .................................................................................................. 3 
Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 4 
About the service .............................................................................................................. 4 
Service Use ........................................................................................................................ 5 
What we have done ........................................................................................................... 8 
Staff counselling................................................................................................................ 9 
Bradford College ............................................................................................................. 10 
Equality monitoring ......................................................................................................... 12 
Evaluation ....................................................................................................................... 12 

 

Counselling Service Team 
 
Head of Service 
Penelope Aspinall 
 
Permanent staff (core team) 
Yvonne Messenger, senior counsellor (0.6 fte) 
Peter Wakefield, senior counsellor (0.5 fte) 
Gill Barlow (previously Nina Wright), full-time counsellor 
Sarah Farnell (previously Pip Mobbs),  counsellor (0.6 fte) 
 
Administrative Staff 
Gilly Butcher, administrator, (0.55 fte)  
Bharti Mistry, administrator (0.5 fte), previously Cathie Raw 
 
Associates and trainees 
In addition to paid permanent counsellors, we use a team of associates and trainees to 
deliver the service.  Associates are qualified counsellors who work on a voluntary basis in 
order to gain more experience and accrue the necessary hours in order to be eligible for 
BACP accreditation (or equivalent). Trainees are counsellors in training who, as an essential 
part of their training, need to be on a placement in order to gain the necessary experience 
as a course requirement. Both associates and trainees are provided with appropriate 
extensive supervision, training, mentoring and support in order to ensure that they 
provide the best service for our clients. 
 
In 2013/14 we had twelve associates and eleven trainees in the team, although three of 
our associates left during the course of the year.  We have, however, reviewed this practice 
and are focussing on creating a smaller team of volunteers for 2014/15, consisting of six 
trainees and seven associate counsellors.  
 
 

 

Introduction 
2014/15 was another busy year, which also saw a lot of change.  In total, 1059 clients 
registered with the service, we saw 871 individual clients and offered 4982 appointments, 
very similar to the previous year.   We further developed our provision for staff, making 
the service more responsive and appropriate to the needs of the University and college 
staff.  Cathie Raw moved to a new post in March, Nina Wright retired at the end of August 
and Pip Mobbs left in July.  Their hard work, experience and expertise will be missed but 
we are delighted to have two new members of the counselling team, Gill Barlow and Sarah 
Farnell.  Bharti Mistry came to the rescue in terms of our administrative post when she was 
seconded over from the Academic Quality and Partnerships Office for half the week.   
About the service 
The Counselling service continues to provide counselling and psycho-educational training 
for the students and staff of the University of Bradford and Bradford College.  We are a 
busy service, and in order to accommodate the numbers of clients and minimise waiting 
times, we usually offer a brief therapy model of up to four sessions in the first instance, 
after a 25 minute intake interview to assess need and/or offer immediate help.  We will 
always endeavour to extend this contract when appropriate, in cases of risk, for example, 
or where the work cannot be usefully or ethically contained in four sessions.  Most 
counselling takes place at our premises in Student Central, although we do run a service 
where students can be seen for pre-booked Intake appointments, at Bradford College 
three times a week.  We stopped our service at the Bradford Student Health Centre as it 
was very under-used and we felt that the resources could be more productively allocated.  
We also developed links with FLM and have reintroduced our service at Emm Lane, so that 
clients can be seen for pre-booked Intake appointments there.  Prospective clients need to 
access the service through an on-line registration form; they will then be invited to book 
an intake interview.   
Another initiative was to bring together the Faculty Welfare contacts.  We had a useful 
meeting in April where they were able to express common concerns and needs.  Following 
on from that we have set up a Reflective Practice Group, which will aim to meet regularly in 
the Counselling Service, facilitated by Peter Wakefield. 
In addition, we ran a series of psycho-educational workshops for students on issues such 
as sleep, managing exam stress etc as well as contributing to the People Development 
programme for staff and training for course reps and sabbatical officers. 
 
 

 


Service Use 
Headline Statistics 
 
 
 
 
2013/14 
2014/15 
 
 
 
Individual Clients registered 
949 
1059 
 
 
 
Individual Clients seen 
877 
871 
 
 
 
Appointments provided 
5325 
4982 
 
 
 
Appointments attended 
3264 
3244 
 
 
 
Workshop attendees 
 315 
185 
 
 
 
 
 
   
   
   
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Figure 1: Service use 
Workshops  Service Use 
16% 
College staff 
3% 
College 
Students 
14% 
University 
students 
57% 
University 
Staff 
10% 
 
 
As can be seen in figure 1, the majority of clients are University students.  Numbers show 
a slight increase over last year.  We are concerned about the numbers of appointments 
missed due to no shows and cancellations.  No shows decreased after we introduced text 
reminders before every session in November but the high rate of missed appointments still 
remains to be a challenge.  Also, when looking at the figures, it needs to be recognised 
that some clients attend for more than one contract in a year.  There were 188 (17%) 

 

clients who registered but did not actually use the service (ie they did not attend or 
respond to an offer of a first appointment). 
Demographics 
The majority of our clients are female (64%).  This is typical of counselling services across 
the sector. 
Other 
No 
Gender 
1% 
response 
2% 
Male 
34% 
Female 
63% 
 
In terms of ethnicity, just under half (48%) of our clients describe themselves as white. 30% 
of clients are Asian, 11% Black or Black British and a further 11% describing themselves as 
either ‘mixed’(4%) or ‘other’(7%).  This reflects the rich diversity of the university and the 
client group that we work with. 
 
Ethnicity 
Other  
7% 
Asian 
30% 
White 
48% 
Black/Black 
British 
Mixed  11% 
4% 
 

 

Looking at all our clients, 79% are from the UK, with 17% from EU or International and no 
response from 4%.  This changes slightly when we look at only clients who are university 
students. Here 23% are International or EU, representing the demographic of the University 
as a whole. 
 
No response 
All clients 
4% 
EU 
8% 
International 
9% 
UK 
79% 
 
 
 
No 
Response 
University Clients 
3% 
International 
13% 
EU 
10% 
UK 
74% 
 

 

What we have done 
In addition to one-to-one counselling, the service has been involved in training and 
outreach initiatives. 
Group work 
The service saw 185 students and staff as part of its group-work programme. The people 
we saw were a mixture of previous clients and entirely new contacts. The programme was 
revised to include Mindfulness for Staff, which has proved very popular.  We introduced a 
monthly lunchtime ‘Space to Breathe’ for staff, which we will continue to run in 2015/16. 
The Assertiveness workshops for students and for staff have been well attended 

Subject 
 
Audience   
Times 
Attendees  Duration 
run   
(total) 
(hrs) 
 
 
 
 
 
Assertiveness 
Students 

34 
1.5 
 
 
 
 
 
Culture Shock 
 
International 



students 
 
 
 
 
 
Mindfulness 
 
Students 

21 

 
 
 
 
 
Panic-Free Exams 
Students 

20 

 
 
 
 
 
Relaxation   
Students 



 
 
 
 
 
Setting Boundaries  Course reps 

16 

 
 
 
Training events  
The service has delivered training packages across three distinct areas. 
  Staff Development/People Development training packages: Managing Difficult 
Conversations, Introduction to Assertiveness, Counselling & Communication Skills 
and Managing Stress through Relaxation. 
  In-house training for Wardens, Security Staff, HR staff, SABS and Student Reps 
covering topics including Understanding Boundaries, Communication Skills, 
Assertiveness, Managing Stress through Relaxation, and Referral Procedures. 
  Monthly training to the team of trainee and associate counsellors on a variety of 
themes and issues appropriate to our work with both students and staff clients.  
 
 

 

Subject 
Audience   
Times run
Attendees 
Duration 
 
 
(total) 
(hrs) 
Assertiveness 
Staff 

28 

 
 
 
Counselling Skills1  Staff 

18 
3.5 
 
Counselling Skills 
Staff 

10 
3.5 

 
 
A Mindfulness 
Staff 

10 

Taster 
 
 
 
 
 
A Space to Breathe  Staff 

18 

CVS   
Community 

12 

 
Voluntary 
services Staff 
 
 
 
 
 
Warden Training 
Hall Wardens 



 
 
Community Engagement 
Over the last four years we have been developing our work with the Community Voluntary 
Services, the umbrella body that supports all community and voluntary work in the 
Bradford area. 
This year they asked us to deliver a two day training open to all workers in the 
participating agencies. The focus of the training was on Communication Skills, 
Assertiveness and Managing Boundaries in Helping Roles.  
Open days  
We have focused on widening our participation and presence at university and college 
open days this year, attending evening and weekend events.  We have developed a more 
interactive approach to engaging with students and staff.   Our little bunches of 
University of Bradford lavender proved particularly popular.  
 
Staff counselling 
150 staff members applied to the Counselling Service this year, 111 from the University 
and 39 College staff.  There was an even split between Academic (54) and Administrative 
staff (55), WITH 18 Academic Related, 4 Ancillary and the remaining described as ‘Other’.  

 


105 of these clients were described as experiencing anxiety, depression, stress or a 
combination of these and 57 (50%) saw this as work-related. 
Building on from the improvements developed in 2013/14, we continued to further 
enhance the staff provision by ensuring that each staff member who contacted the service 
was offered the opportunity to talk with one of our senior counsellors on the telephone to 
assess their needs and identify what they needed.  This usually meant that staff would 
not need to attend an Intake appointment and could be referred straight into counselling 
with either a core team member or experienced associate.  Using members of our highly 
skilled experienced associate team is particularly beneficial where there might be a 
potential boundary issue with a core team member having contact with the staff member 
in other contexts. 
 
In addition we have introduced a staff only drop-in at 8.30 on Friday mornings and run a 
monthly lunchtime mindfulness session (Space to Breathe).  This is bookable via the 
People Development website. 
 
As we are keen to provide a join-up approach to delivering the right kind of support for 
students, we convened a meeting with the Faculty Welfare advisors to explore their needs 
and concerns.  Following on from this, we are now running a reflective practice group for 
these staff members to share good practice and provide support for each other. 
Bradford College 
Overview of Service 
Once again the service has been busy, with 168 students and 39 staff members 
registering to use the service.  
College Students 
100
80
60
40
STUDENTS 2014/15
20
STUDENTS 2013/14
0
STUDENTS 2012/13
 
 
10 
 


This represents an increase in student numbers but a slight drop in staff using the 
service. The move to the Madiba room has been especially successful with many students 
choosing to have their Intake appointment at the college.  We no longer run the service as 
a drop-in.  Clients will need to pre-book their Intake appointment if they wish to be seen 
at the college.  They can, of course, use the drop-in at the Counselling Service premises if 
they wish to attend without an appointment. 
 
College Staff 
60
40
20
0
2014/15
2013/14
2012/13
 
 
Liaison with support staff 
We value our good working relationship with all Bradford college staff with a pastoral 
responsibility for students.  We provide consultation for staff members concerned about a 
student’s wellbeing and strive to work closely with student welfare advisors, the 
safeguarding officer and mental health advisor.   
 
Workshops 
In addition to one to one counselling, college students have attended workshops on 
Assertiveness, Managing Exam Stress and Improving Sleep. The advertising for this is now 
working well through all available channels. 
Publicity 
The College have taken over producing their own leaflet for the counselling service which 
is now much better. The internal electronic newsletters produced for both staff and 
students are working well to disseminate information about the service and the 
workshops on offer. The BACP-UC produced a short ‘Ted Talks’ style video promoting 
College counselling services, which was put on the College website in June. 
 
 
11 
 

Inductions and Open days 
This year the service has taken a full part in the Induction programme for new students 
and Open Days, in order to have a greater presence within the College.  We also 
successfully contributed to the Well Fair, with a stand aimed at increasing awareness of 
the importance of looking after your mental health. 
Equality monitoring 
As with most counselling services, the majority of clients both students and staff are 
female. We do, however, see a sizeable proportion of male clients who engage with and 
benefit from using the service.   We continue to monitor all aspects of the way we deliver 
provision in order to ensure that the service feels accessible to all who might benefit from 
using it. 
Evaluation 
As we found that we were getting very low return rates on the evaluation forms we sent 
out by email at the end of counselling, we decided to change our approach.  In April, we 
introduced a simple feedback post card which clients can complete at the end of their 
contract or at any time during their use of the service.  The post card gives a quick and 
easy snapshot of the client’s experience of the service as well as collected some data.  
This has proved to be a popular way of getting feedback, which has been overwhelmingly 
positive.  In addition to this, we had a ‘snapshot week’ in the Spring and Summer terms 
where every client of the service was invited to complete a questionnaire.  People can also 
give us feedback via our website.  This proved very encouraging with 95% either strongly 
(72%) agreeing or agreeing (23%) that that they had a positive experience or with the 
Counselling Service.  
As well as questions about client satisfaction with the service, we ask questions based on 
the 2012 BACP-UC (Wallace, P 2012 BACP) research looking at retention and 
employability.  The following results, gathered through using a Bristol Online Survey, 
show that for many of our clients, the counselling had a very strong impact on their 
ability to stay at university, their academic performance, their student experience and 
employability. 
 
 
 
12 
 

 
To what extent would you say that counselling is: 
1.  Helping you stay at university/college? 
 
 
N/A this doesn't apply to me
 
Not at all
 
To a limited extent
 
One of many factors
 
An important factor
 
 
The most significant factor
 
0
20
40
60
80
100
 
2.  Helping you do better in academic work? 
N/A this doesn't apply to me
Not at all
To a limited extent
One of many factors
An important factor
The most significan factor
0
20
40
60
80
100
 
 
 
 
13 
 

 
3.  Improving your overall experience of University/college? 
N/A this doesn't apply to me
Not at all
To a limited extent
One of many factors
An important factor
The most significant factor
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
 
4.  Helping you develop skills that might be useful for future employment (eg building 
resilience, understanding of others, managing difficult feelings better, increased 
confidence/assertiveness)? 
 
N/A this does not apply to me
Not at all
To a limited extent
One of many factors
An important factor
The most significant factor
0
20
40
60
80
 
214 responses 
Postcard (61) 
February Snapshot (47) 
April Snapshot (47) 
Previous system August – April (59) 
14 
 

What the clients say about us (comments from feedback forms) 
  I feel more confident expressing my true emotions, believing in myself 
and challenging negative thoughts about myself. 
  I am very grateful for this opportunity/facility, everything is helping 
me, the sensitive welcoming environment. The professionalism and 
friendly service is changing my life for the better. Thank you very 
positive, helpful. 
  Making me learn about myself and challenge things in life. An 
excellent and accessible service lovely environment, very useful 
  Come in sad, confused but now am sure of what I want and who I am. 
  Gave me strength to go on. Enabling me to not feel alone 
  The Service has helped me a great deal. It's always good to have a 
smile to greet you when you walk into reception. 
  Helped me touch on difficult issues as I felt I could discuss things 
without being judged. It helped me learn how to deal with frustration 
& communicate my feelings effectively. I felt my counsellor understood 
the difficulties I am facing, which is valuable as I have felt 
misunderstood by people recently. 
  I have learnt a great deal about myself & have a better sense of how to 
ask for help & work through issues. 
Suggestions for improvement 
  More advertising at Uni would be good, I only found out about the 
service for a friend 
  The entrance should be a little bit more discrete, I feel a bit 
uncomfortable walking in with a lot of people looking at me. 
  Thank you for being there. It’s been fab. The waiting list is large 
though. Given how helpful the service is, you'd think more counsellors 
would be employed. 
We take all feedback very seriously and where possible try and address 
problems and concerns.  We are extending our publicity for 2015/16, 
planning to make more use of technology eg the UoB app and are open to 
any suggestions about how we can reach greater numbers of people who 
would benefit from our service, as well as break down any perceived stigma. 
We have also made huge efforts to decrease waiting times, with more 
efficient allocation of resources and systems.  However, it is inevitable that 
at times of high demand people will have to wait longer than they like.  To 
put it in perspective, though, it is very unusual for someone to have to wait 
longer than three weeks for an ongoing counselling session (unless they 
have very limited availability) whereas the wait for Improving Access to 
Psychological Therapies (IAPT) NHS individual counselling in Bradford is 
currently two to four months. 
Further statistics on service use and evaluation can be obtained from the 
Head of the Counselling Service. 
 
15