Sam Thomas, CEO at The Harbour, has written the following statement about how the charity is responding to the COVID-19 outbreak.
“The global COVID-19 pandemic came with little warning. On a global and local level, all of us are struggling to come to terms with what it means from a psychological, physical and economic perspective. At The Harbour, around 60% of the people who use our service have a life-threatening illness, or care for someone with a life-threatening illness. For many people in this situation, the added worry of their heightened susceptibility to COVID-19 is likely to escalate feelings of anxiety, stress, depression, and isolation, for themselves and for their families and loved ones.
From 16th March we transitioned our entire counselling service from face-to-face counselling to sessions delivered remotely over the phone or Zoom. This has been a big transition for us to make; we have a 28 year track record of delivering high quality counselling, the vast majority of which has been face-to-face.
The repercussions of the Covid-19 outbreak sit right at the heart of what we do, and will continue to have very significant implications for the vulnerable client groups we work with. I am very proud of the way that the whole team has responded to the challenge of adapting our service, and the fact that we have been able to continue to offer sessions with little or no disruption at this very difficult time.
Over the past year we have revised our vision, mission and values, and the remit of our service. We are striving to be an organisation that works at the ‘living edge’ of grief, death, and loss, and therefore our response to the COVID-19 outbreak is to keep supporting people who face these circumstances in Bristol. Never has it been more important to provide a safe space for people who are affected by death, dying and bereavement to talk and be listened to.
Our thoughts are with everyone who may be struggling at this uncertain time.”
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