A Rotherham charity which offers counselling to people who have experienced trauma and abuse has been awarded £170,000 of council funds.
At its Cabinet meeting earlier today, (Monday) Rotherham Council agreed to use £170K from its Covid recovery reserves to support the Rotherham Abuse Counselling Service (RothACS).
Welcoming the award, RothACS chief executive officer Jo McKinney said: “We are thrilled the council has given us this funding.
“Earlier this year we lost out on our bid for a Ministry of Justice grant, which meant we were facing a shortfall in funding this year and an even greater deficit next year.
“This loss of funding would have meant a cut to some counselling sessions as we rely on external funding to continue our work through grants and contacts.
“We are, therefore, extremely grateful to all the organisations, including the council, who support us in this way.
“We will now be able to keep up our offer of counselling for local people who have experienced trauma and abuse.”
The service provides free specialist counselling to anyone over the age of 13 who has experienced trauma and abuse, including domestic abuse, sexual abuse, child sexual exploitation or child sexual abuse.
Council Leader, Cllr Chris Read said: “The government’s policy of making areas compete against each other for this sort of funding saw grants given to all our neighbouring authorities here in South Yorkshire during the summer while Rotherham again lost out.
“That was obviously a concern for us, as we continue to try to ensure that survivors of abuse get the support they need locally. Fortunately, we are in a position where we can make up for the shortfall on this occasion, so additional counselling sessions can continue to be provided to people who need them, but that isn’t always the case and victims of crime shouldn’t be subject to this kind of postcode lottery.”
Over the last 12 months, RothACS has had contact with a total of 1,203 Rotherham residents, providing around 100 counselling sessions a week.
A total of 860 assessments and 2,787 counselling sessions were attended during this period, with 80 per cent of the organisation’s clients reporting an increase in their mental health and wellbeing.