20/9/23 – The AGM for Counselling Care: Skye and Lochalsh will take place on Wednesday 25th October starting at 11am at Breakish Hall. All are welcome!
3/8/23 – Fundraising receives a generous boost
A huge thank you to Skye Live Festival who have generously donated £1000 to Counselling Care Skye & Lochalsh! Thank you.
Thank you to all who attended our Charity Café at Ardvasar Hall. A good time was had and with your help we raised £464.69! Thank you😊
12/6/23 – National Lottery Community Fund award
We are thrilled to announce that we have been successful in securing an award from the National Lottery Community Fund. CCSL will receive £116, 634 over three years. This is brilliant news for our charity and the local community. It comes at a crucial time when people are struggling with the cost-of-living crisis and NHS waiting lists are long. This award means we can ensure that those who cannot afford to pay for counselling can still access it for free. This grant, alongside other grants and fundraising, will help to cover our staff and running costs for the next three years.
6/6/23 – ‘Online’ charity auction now open!
If you can’t make it on the night to our charity concert (this Thursday 7.30pm at the Lighthouse Centre, Kyle) and would like to bid for one of the prizes on offer, please email with: 1. the prize you want to bid for, 2. The amount, 3. Your name & address to sarah@counsellingcaresl.org by noon on Thursday 8th June. We’ll contact you by email if your bid is successful and to arrange payment and collection. If you live further afield we can arrange Special Delivery through the post office for an extra fee.
Auction Prizes:
- Attadale Gardens Family Season Ticket (for two adults and up to 4 children, valid until the end of October plus a copy of their latest edition of the Garden Guidebook)
- Kishorn Seafood Bar Lobster lunch for two
- Adult woollen poncho
- Isle of Skye Candles Scottish Collection Gift Set (candles and reed diffuser)
- Bruichladdich The Classic Laddie Islay Whisky (First edition)
- 3pairs of ladies socks (Foxbury, cotton, sizes 4-7)
- Cross stitch framed picture
- DeLonghi coffee grinder
- Chloe Ward UK handbag
- And finally… a cuddly toy! Or two. Very large soft Meerkat toy
- Smaller traditional teddy bear
We’d like to give a huge thanks to all donors of prizes for both the charity auction and our upcoming raffle at the Charity Café in Ardvasar on 20th July, including Strathcarron Hotel, Strathcarron Breweries, Attadale Gardens, Kishorn Seafood Bar, Isle of Skye Candle Company and all private donors – thank you.
2023/05/31 – Traditional music concert 8th June
We are delighted to announce that we’ll be holding a fantastic fundraising event on Thursday 8th June – a Traditional Music Concert by students at the National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music. It’s a great chance to see the talented students perform and is always a wonderful evening of entertainment. It will be held at the Lighthouse Centre in Kyle of Lochalsh (Station Road, IV40 8AE) at 7.30pm. Tickets are available on the door from 7.15pm (£10/£5 concessions) and there will be a variety of refreshments and home baking available.
We are extremely grateful as always to Dougie Pincock and the Plockton Music School students for agreeing to put on this concert on behalf of our charity and to the Lighthouse Centre for generously offering to host this fundraising evening for us.
We look forward to welcoming you for a fantastic evening!
2022/08/12
All at Counselling Care: Skye and Lochalsh are shocked and deeply saddened by the terrible events in South Skye and Dornie last Wednesday. Our thoughts are with all those involved and with the wider community at this very difficult time.
Immediate in person and phone support for anybody affected by recent events in Sleat and Lochalsh will be available from today between 0830 and 1730 in the Kyle Medical Practice. Please call 01599 530930 and ask to speak to the Skye Incident Support team. This service is being provided by NHS Highland, as part of the multi-agency approach to supporting our communities.
Over the coming days, weeks and months, Counselling Care will also be working closely with the community response teams, to help to ensure that those needing psychological support, in response to these events, (both adults and children) are able to receive it.
In the meantime, we will be posting regular updates regarding how to contact the various organisations who can also provide advice, help and support on our website http://counsellingcaresl.org and on our Facebook page Counselling Care Skye & Lochalsh, so please check these regularly.
We are here to help
Double AmazonSmile donations this Prime Day
July 12th/13th is Amazon Prime day, when Counselling Care will receive double donations on all eligible purchases made with AmazonSmile.
It would be very much appreciated if you would make us your default charity to receive Amazon donations when you shop. All you have to do is go to smile.amazon.co.uk/ch/SC033321, and do your shopping from there. Even if you don’t buy through Amazon on those days, if you have us as your default charity on smile.amazon.co.uk, we will always get a donation from them when you shop.
Every penny raised will help us to continue our vital work in our community.
Thank you!
‘Online’ charity auction now open!
If you can’t make it on the night and would like to bid for one of the prizes on offer, please email with: 1. the prize you want to bid for, 2. The amount, 3. Your name & address to sarah@counsellingcaresl.org by noon on Wednesday 8th June. We’ll contact you by email if your bid is successful and to arrange payment and collection. If you live further afield we can arrange Special Delivery through the post office for an extra fee.
Auction Prizes:
1. Dinner, bed & breakfast voucher for 2 from Kinloch Lodge (valid October – March for 2 years). Reserve price – £300
2. Half day sea kayaking voucher from South Skye Sea Kayak for 1 family of up to 6 people. Reserve price – £150
3. Bottle of Special Torobhaig 2017 Legacy Series ‘The Inaugural Release’ whisky (private individual donation – no longer available to purchase). Reserve price – £100
4. A barrel lid with a carving of the Isle of Skye from Nook and Cranny
5. Set of Hand Soap, Shampoo and Body Wash from The Selkie Collective
6. Bottle of Jura whisky ‘Journey’
7. Small bright pink backpack
8. And finally… a cuddly toy! Large Winnie the Pooh soft toy
We’d like to give a huge thanks to all donors of prizes for both the charity auction and our upcoming raffle in August, including Kinloch Lodge Hotel, South Skye Sea Kayak, Jura Distillery, Nook and Cranny, The Selkie Collective, Isle of Skye Candle Company and all private donors – thank you.
2022/06/02 – Traditional music concert & charity auction 9th June
We are very pleased to announce that we’ll be holding our first fundraising event since lockdowns began. As a small local charity we rely on grants, donations and fundraising activities to support the work we do in providing low-cost affordable counselling to all who need it in the local area. We are planning various fundraising events over the summer, the first of which is a Traditional Music Concert by students at the National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music. This will be held at the Skye Bridge Studios 123 in Kyle of Lochalsh at 7.30pm on Thursday 9th June. This is an excellent opportunity to hear the current cohort of talented traditional musicians at Plockton in the West Highland’s newest arts and performance venue in Kyle – and at the same time support a very worthwhile local charity. Furthermore, we will be holding a charity auction during the interval with some fantastic prizes available!
Tickets are available on the door from 7pm (£10/£5 concessions) and the bar will be open for refreshments. We are extremely grateful to Dougie Pincock and the Plockton Music School students for agreeing to put on this concert on behalf of our charity and to Jonathan Supper at Skye Bridge Studios 123 for generously offering to host this fundraising evening for us.
If you can’t join us on the night, you can still support us and bag yourself a great prize! We are inviting ‘sealed bids’ by email in advance. Please watch this space for details and a list of auction prizes.
2022/02/22 – CalMac Community Found
We are delighted to announce an award of £2000 from the CalMac Community Found to support services and activities supporting better mental health and improving wellbeing. This award will be used to enable CC:SL to provide counselling to people of Skye and Lochalsh whose mental health have been affected by Covid pandemic.
2021/12/21 – Funding and donations.
This year has been a challenge for all of us. We’ve found that the requests for help have risen, as more people have needed to talk about the challenges the year has brought. In some cases, existing mental health problems have been made more acute as a result of isolation due to the covid virus. Counselling Care: Skye and Lochalsh has been there for the community though out this difficult time.
As a charity we rely on grants and donations to pay for the services we offer to adults, young people and school age children. This year, our fundraising efforts have been restricted by covid, but examples of very successful fundraising efforts during the year were “Winter Walks” where people committed to walk a certain distance between the New Year and Easter and the sponsored Munro mountain challenge by CSM & Co accountants. Both of which helped CCSL to raise a significant amount.
After many years of offering schools- based counselling, our contribution to the mental health of local children and young people has now been recognised by the Highland Council, who have awarded CCSL a contract to enable us to continue to provide counselling for children and young people over 10 years of age.
We were also pleased to have been able to also secure grant funding from NHS Highland from April 2022. This will contribute towards the cost of providing counselling to adults within Skye and Lochalsh.
Whilst this financial support from the Highland Council and the NHS is very welcome, we still require significant additional funding to ensure that we can continue to provide counselling services, open to all those who live in Skye and Lochalsh. The fund raising and donations that we’ve received this year have therefore been critical, in enabling us to continue to provide this valued and much needed service for adults, children and young people in our local community.
Every little helps to keep the service going. We therefore very much appreciate the individual donations and financial contributions that have helped to support our work and the efforts made by those who have taken part in fund-raising efforts on our behalf. For example, those who participated in the Winter Walks and Munro challenges and the person who recently ran a marathon and raised over £200.
We will soon be starting a new winter fund raising challenge which will be posted here on our website and social media. So please do look out for details about how you too can support our work.
2021/04/01 Thinking Creatively – The Power of Play Therapy
Counselling Care: Skye and Lochalsh (CCSL) are delighted to have received a grant from Calmac to purchase “play therapy boxes” for primary schools across Skye. There is no doubt that the pandemic has had a significant impact on the mental health and well-being of local children and young people. The pressures of lockdown, home schooling and not being able to see or meet up with family and friends, have left many local children feeling anxious, stressed and unable to cope with the daily challenges they face. Throughout this very difficult time CCSL has always been there, providing a much-needed professional local counselling service to all of the children and young people who needed our help.
Covid restrictions have meant some big changes in the ways in which the counsellors in our Children and Young Peoples service needed to work, however. As a result, we have had to move a lot of our counselling sessions on-line, using video links to connect with our young clients. Much of the counselling support which we provide to primary school children involves “play therapy” in which drawing, making things from play dough and playing with dolls and other objects forms an important part of a counselling session. Before the pandemic, our counsellors took a box of these items along with them, when visiting schools. The move to on-line counselling meant that this was no longer possible, so we had to think creatively about how we could still provide play-based therapy in these very different circumstances. The solution, we thought, would be to provide each school with an easily sanitized “therapy play box” for young clients to use during video-based counselling sessions. To avoid any chance of covid contamination, it was clear that the items in the play boxes could also only ever be used by one child, meaning that these would also need to be regularly replaced.
As a small local charity with limited financial resources, the cost of providing the play boxes and replacement items to all of the local primary schools, clearly presented us with a financial challenge. We were therefore very happy, to learn our grant application to Calmac to purchase these had been successful. As a result, primary school children across the area will now still be able to continue to receive counselling sessions based on play therapy, the type of therapy that is the most appropriate to their age group.
Even when face to face counselling sessions in school can resume, which we hope will be in the near future, the play boxes will still provide a very important counselling resource, so thanks again Calmac for helping us to continue to help local children. As a result, primary school children across the area will continue to receive the type of professional counselling support they most need to improve their mental health and well-being and to enable them to cope better with the many challenges that the post-lockdown era is also likely to present.
