Accessibility

MCS charitable objectives seek to provide support for the mental health of people in Herefordshire and surrounding counties who, because of mental or physical ill health, social or economic circumstances, or disability, are suffering from psychological distress and/or disorder.

We recognise that there can be various barriers to people accessing our service. These may be physical, financial, psychological or cultural. Although we cannot always remove barriers for everybody, we work hard to minimise them so that the therapeutic service we provide is as accessible as possible to the widest range of residents of Herefordshire. We do this in various ways:

Physical

Providing a number ways that people can access counselling, including use of a disabled access room and remote sessions via phone or video platform

Financial

Obtaining financial support through grants and other sources of funding to enable low cost counselling for those who are unable to pay the full fee.

Psychological

Being sensitive in our approach when people first make contact to ensure they feel as at ease as possible.

Cultural

Being culturally sensitive and responsive to changing needs arising from peoples experience of social inequalities and discrimination.

Monitoring accessibility

Physical

  • Identify new premises in Hereford centre with ground floor access 
  • Continue support for staff in remote counselling approaches 
  • Improve the MCS Website self help pages
  • Pilot safe space initiative for counselling in community hub services

Financial

  • Continue to apply for and secure funding to provide a sustainable service

Psychological

  • Continue to review monitoring systems 

Cultural

  • Continue with appropriate Staff/volunteer CPD training 
  • Continue to monitor equality and diversity 

Access is monitored through a number of feedback gathering methods, including client feedback forms, an equality questionnaire and occasional public surveys. Our strategy is reviewed annually

Follow the link to read more about our Accessibility Strategy.