Redundancies at counselling charity after funding cut

An Aberdeen charity which offers free counselling services has made the majority of its staff redundant after it lost "crucial funding".

Cairns Counselling currently provides free sessions to about 100 people, with more than 200 others on its waiting list.

However, the organisation lost grant support from Aberdeen Health and Social Care Partnership and the NHS in December.

Six members of staff - including the chief executive - were made redundant this week, leaving just two people to run the 30-year-old charity.

Cairns Counselling offers face-to-face sessions and telephone support for people with a range of mental health issues in Aberdeen city and Aberdeenshire.

It said it would suspend offering counselling sessions from 22 May, and close its premises in the city centre.

Counselling services manager Leasha Esslemont said: "The service will not continue in the form it has been. We do have to leave the building where we deliver our counselling face to face.

"We really hope to provide support to the people on our waiting list and we are currently looking to secure facilities to enable us to do that."

She added: "But we are very much in talks, nothing is solid at the moment."

Cairns said it saw a surge in demand for its services after the closure of fellow charity Mental Health Aberdeen (MHA).

It resulted in it cutting the number of free sessions it offered to people by half – from 20 to 10 – because so many had been added to its waiting list.

Esslemont said: "One of the difficult decisions that we have had to make is to actually close our referrals to ensure we weren't holding people on the waiting list for too long when we realised that potentially we might not be able to continue delivering the service."

Aberdeen Health and Social Care Partnership said it was saddened by the closure of Cairns' premises.

A spokesperson: "We recognise that a range of mental health advice and counselling services remains available in Aberdeen.

"Aberdeen City Health and Social Care Partnership carefully considers how best to support the local population, ensuring people are clearly signposted to the most appropriate service."