Kerry SalonerTalkabout spoke to Kerry Saloner about counselling services at ACON
What brought you to ACON?
I was working in South Africa, and developed a counselling program for health care workers and medical students. The high number of people diagnosed with HIV meant workers needed basic counselling skills. There was a huge wave of volunteerism, which led to many people being trained up as lay counsellors, and a very different energy about HIV in South Africa from 1999 to 2005.
HIV and sexuality were two areas of passionate interest to me. We didn’t know where the epidemic was going to take us in South Africa, and sexuality was also in some ways unresearched and unexplained. I wanted to continue my work in HIV, and so I came to ACON in 2005.
What kinds of counselling does ACON offer?
Short term counselling (six to nine sessions) takes place in the daytime, and focuses on current needs. This program is well established and has been running for many years. This is a free service and its priority has been people living with HIV, and people from the GLBT community who are financially disadvantaged and cannot afford a private service.
We now also offer medium term counselling (up to 26 sessions) in the evenings, because six sessions may not be enough for some people to explore deeper issues. This operates four evenings a week (Monday to Thursday), and works on a donation basis. We ask people to contribute $10 for each $10,000 they earn annually, and suggest $5 per session if people are on Centrelink benefits, but we won’t refuse to see anyone.
Daytime counselling is by qualified and experienced counselling staff. Our evening counselling is a volunteer program, but there are stringent selection criteria for the evening counsellors. They’re either in their final year of study, or they’re newly qualified or substantially experienced. All of our counsellors receive clinical supervision.
Do people need a referral or just turn up at reception and say they’d like to see a counsellor?
You don’t need a referral to see one of our counsellors. In fact, if someone has come to ask for counselling themselves, it means they have really decided they want to deal with an issue. We have an intake officer who does a comprehensive assessment to look at what’s the best way forward and the most suitable course of action for the person who’s requesting help.
Is there a waiting period?
If counsellors are available we’ll allocate them as soon as possible, but generally there’s a short waiting time, from one to three weeks. If people can’t wait because their situation is more urgent, we will refer them to partner organisations. Intake officers will follow up regularly with clients to see how they’re progressing.
What kinds of issues do people see you about?
People come to us with a broad range of issues, including drugs and alcohol, housing, same sex domestic violence, and relationships. The most common issue (42% of our clients) is mental health and this includes anxiety, depression, stress or a diagnosable mental health condition. The second most common issue is relationships, and third is HIV.
HIV may not always be the priority issue they’re coming to us with, but might come up later. For example, their relationship could be the reason for contact, but then that could be partly because they might be in a serodiscordant relationship.
So, we also do couple counselling. It can be important to open up communication in relationships. We encourage people to have those conversations here, whether it’s about open or closed relationships, using protection outside the relationship etc.
It takes courage to come to the point of saying I need counselling. All the counsellors are client centred in their work, and come from the perspective that it’s not up to us to tell the client what to do. We try our best to work unconditionally with clients.
What about confidentiality?
We’re very aware of the need for confidentiality. We work in an organisation with its roots in HIV and AIDS, a disease that can be extremely stigmatized. Our record keeping procedures and protocols for maintaining confidentiality are very strict. The counselling team is a small team and we always get consent from the client to talk to other team members about their issues on occasions where it might be necessary to do so. In some instances we have a professional responsibility to find out all options for the client. This information is not shared outside the counselling team or with the wider ACON staff.
What else do you offer?
Just over a year ago, we started up a New HIV Diagnosis Priority Service. If someone has recently been diagnosed (and what ‘recent’ means is up to the client), we will provide telephone or face–to-face counselling within one working day of them making contact with us.
We also run four different therapeutic groups. They include: exploring the blues (for people living with depression and anxiety), exploring anger, and exploring intimacy (one for women and one for men). The groups are free flowing, and the discussions are guided by experienced facilitators.
What kind of feedback have you had?
We’re seeing more of a need for counselling. Evaluations of counselling and groups have shown clients report an improved sense of emotional and social well being, with 90% rating the service as “excellent”. Anecdotally counsellors also report seeing real change. For some clients it’s the first time they can talk freely about same-sex relationships, or living with HIV. A lot of people also come back, and get a boost to keep them going.
Kerry Saloner is the Manager of the Counselling and Enhanced Care Service at ACON. ACON offers a counselling service for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered communities, and anyone affected by an HIV diagnosis. To make an appointment please call ACON on (02) 9206 2000 or 1800 063060