This week’s update comes from Hope in Tottenham Director Rev John Wood MBE on a new milestone for Counselling.

By Rev.John Wood. MBE, Director

As schools cautiously begin to re-open today with the easing of ‘lockdown’ restrictions, HiT has been heartened by the different levels of support it has received in order to be fit for purpose in such massively changed times.

Schools themselves have been generous in their willingness to stay with HiT Counselling during their closures, working creatively and sympathetically with the project to ensure children’s needs are met remotely. Our cash flow has, therefore, remained stable and we have been able to keep all our practitioners.

The professionalism and adaptability of counsellors to work with schools in this way has also led to the service being commissioned, with NHS money, to expand our work by six days a week in September as the return to school accelerates. We will use the money to build on and expand our work in new ways that will make it accessible to larger numbers of students, for example through group work, whole-class engagement and schools currently outside our current cohort.

Finally, we are delighted to announce the receipt of a generous legacy gift from a family with very strong ties to Tottenham. This commitment to HiT means that we can continue to work on early intervention mental health programs, mentoring projects and police engagement workshops for the community’s young people.

All this makes us believe that there is still much hope in, and for, Tottenham.    

Rev. John Wood MBE
Hope in Tottenham Director