CLEAR Pause Adult Referrals
After serious consideration, we regret to announce that we have placed a temporary pause on referrals into our adult service for victims and survivors of rape and sexual abuse. We are experiencing unprecedented levels of demand and have more adults waiting for support than ever before. Our team of over 40 counsellors and therapists are working at full capacity. We therefore need to focus on building capacity and supporting the people who are currently in our service and on the waiting list in order to prevent further service overwhelm.
We understand that this decision may have an impact on wellbeing and we apologise for this. We will re-open for referrals as soon as we can and will review the situation at the end of September when an update will be given on our website.
We currently have more than 200 adults on the waitlist and are receiving new referrals every day and we are currently at full capacity with counsellors. The numbers waiting mean that we would be committing funds for 2022-23, if we continued to accept referrals, and as yet we don’t know the total level of funding we will receive next year. We are therefore focussing on adult clients currently in service and on the current waiting list. And we are building our counselling capacity through the use of experienced clinical placements and we will continue to advertise for additional sessional counsellors.
Carolyn Webster, CLEAR CEO said: “It feels like a heavy weight having to make this decision but we are in danger of becoming overwhelmed by demand and we need to make sure that we can continue to deliver to our usual high standards for our current clients. We will review the decision at the end of September with a view to setting a date to re-open for self-referrals only.”
30 Sepember 2021 Update
Adult referrals remain paused - this situation will be reviewed at the end of October.
5 November 2021 Update
From 15 November Adult Referrals will re-open for self referrals. However all referrals will be kept under constant review as we balance demand with capacity. This means that we are unable to take referrals from third parties such as GPs and community groups. The current wait time is about 6 months. (Our current funding from the Ministry of Justice supports people who have been affected by rape and sexual abuse at any point in their lifetime. The Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner provide funding for victims of traumatic crime. Cornwall Council provides funding for people who are considered Clinically Extremely Vulnerable as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.)
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