Professional Help
The name ‘Professional Help’ came about as a result of the number of times that Catherine was told by staff members (and volunteers) of the organisations she was working with that they were struggling with providing services for their clients when they felt that they needed professional help themselves. Most of these organisations were dealing with very difficult issues and prided themselves on providing excellent care for their clients and customers – yet struggled to offer this ‘in-house’ to their own people. Staff members, including leaders and senior managers often felt that they were not well supported to deliver their role and that any additional stresses in their work or personal lives may be the tipping point at which they would be unable to continue to offer the quality of service that they needed to - or even to come to work at all. Many also felt that supporting their colleagues was an additional difficulty and that they did not have the skills or confidence to offer help when their own staff members and colleagues were going through difficult times.
These conversations stuck with Catherine for years - and is now what drives this organisation – the desire to ensure that all organisations no matter their size, resources or complexity, are able to achieve their fullest potential and to ensure that all staff, managers and leaders are well supported and cared for - with just a little bit of Professional Help.
Professional Help is also a wry nod to the organisations that Catherine has been involved with – many of which have been in some manner or other counselling and therapy related and from which she learned a great deal not only about organisational and people management, but also about life and the things that matter.
Professional Help is an Organisational Member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy and an Associate Member of the Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors and follows the Standards set by each professional body.
Being something of an ageing rock chick, I was deeply shocked and saddened to hear yesterday of the suicide of Chris Cornell, ‘grunge’ rock pioneer from the early ‘90s and one of my teenage (and beyond!) personal heroes. Here was a man with the world at his feet. Rich beyond most of our wildest dreams, with a wife and family he seemingly loved and millions of adoring fans the world over. If I’m honest, I almost couldn’t believe the news. What had gone so terribly wrong? How could this have happened? Why didn’t someone help him? The music press, social media and his fans the world over were asking many of the same questions as I.
I attended a suicide awareness workshop over in Northern Ireland a few years ago, at which both survivors of suicide (those who had tried to take their own lives; some repeatedly) and those who had been bereaved by suicide were present. The dialogue was raw; the stories were difficult to hear and the questions often unanswerable. The story of a man in his forties whose father had killed himself when he was a teenager stayed with me for months afterwards and his heartfelt question still does today. He wanted to know of his father “‘why was I not enough to keep you here?”. The valiant attempts to answer this question by the mental health professionals, the people who themselves had attempted suicide, the bereavement counsellors and the religious leaders were insightful, kind and well meant, but of course the only person who could have answered it to his complete satisfaction was not present. I know that the man who shared his story found comfort in talking to others who had been there and were able to begin to explain how it might feel to be in a place so desperate and hopeless that you felt your only option was death. They told him that when the world seems so dark, it feels like you are actually doing a favour for those you love to leave them behind, as to stay would be to burden, or worse still, to cause harm to those you love.
