I received a number of enquiries regarding my private practices in the past six months. Thanks for your huge support, reaching out to me for enquiries and inviting me to be parts of your counselling journey. It is out of my expectation and is a promising beginning of my counselling work journey in the UK. My current weekly practice hours are more than that before I left Hong Kong, however, it is still not enough to support my living. To be honest, I need to rely on various work to secure my income.
"Self-caring" is crucial for a counsellor. I do not want to stretch myself for long-working hours to support my living. It might lead to mental fatigue, which would bring impacts on therapeutic relationships.
In the meanwhile, I am afraid to make this decision of increasing counselling fee. I am worried that would become a barrier and stop people from receiving counselling services. After all, I am not the only one facing challenges form crisis of living and business cost. However, I could not pretend it does not affect me, we are all human being. My job nature would not protect me from pressure of finance. Therefore, I did market researchers, it seems like £50 is the minimum session fee for a fully qualified / accred counsellor. I hope this is reasonable. Sliding Scale Fees is available from £40 upon your own decision. Also, I would reserve spaces for counselling students for special price, please contact me for details. New counselling fees will be effect from 1st January 2023.
I sincerely hope it makes sense to you. If you are Hongkongers living in the UK with BNO, I strongly advise you to reach out to Barnardo's Boloh Helpline Services designated for BN(O) holders. They obtained support from the UK Government to support Hongkongers with Helpline and limited sessions of free counselling services.
