Success Stories
“You helped me through the most traumatic time of my life and I hope you can continue to help young women just like you helped me. You are my guardian angel and I will never forget you. Thank you so much”.
“I saw the lads again, the bad ones from before, none of them have changed but I know I have and I know I don’t want to be like them anymore”.
“…you know what we did with that letter, the one we burnt, well I walked past the place that ‘it’ happened the other day and I actually smiled. I WON! I left him in Styal and I’ve won! Thank you, really, really, thank you, from the very bottom of my heart”
Our Background
The story of Room To Talk (RTT) begins in 2009, when we started a voluntary counselling and psychotherapy service inside HMP YOI Styal women’s prison, in Wilmslow, Cheshire. The service was originally set-up to support the young offenders as there was not a designated provision at this time. After 6 months, Room to Talk had become the most popular self-referral service within the establishment and we were asked to open it up to accommodate all women.
We were soon over-subscribed and began recruiting enthusiastic and committed volunteers to reduce our waiting list, which continued to grow daily. Our self-referrals grew too, complimented by referrals from functional heads, operational staff, offender management, safer-custody, health care & education.
To date, Room to Talk has offered one-to-one therapy to more than 1000 women and group interventions to 500+ women. There are many more women in need of our support and it remains our number 1 priority that any woman requiring immediate support not be turned away and secondly, contracted therapy be offered within 2 weeks of assessment. Current demand for the service means that we are meeting our first priority but are some way from meeting our second – we remain committed to ensuring that 2019/20 sees the service fully-funded and in a position to build on our existing Big Lottery Award and therefore able to expand within the establishment and through the gate into the community to provide continuity of care.
Room To Talk, Room To Grow.
Room To Talk relies on people pledging support and grants to keep the service going. Please click the button above to support us so that we can continue to help women in need and expand within the community.
save
the Future
help
those in need
Room To Talk offer one-to-one therapy sessions and a variety of group interventions. We work both privately and within HMP YOI Styal.
What We Do
hope
for Change
Our Mission
Room To Talk