Vernon Family Resource Centre looking for volunteers to become lay counsellors

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The Family Resource Centre is looking for helpers to help others.

The Vernon-based organization is looking for lay counsellors to help clients who have a been through a program with professional counsellors.

Jim Swingle, centre executive director, said the six-week course, Feb. 6 to March 13, will train volunteers to reach out to clients and see how they are doing.

Swingle said Community Support Volunteers will will attend one, three-hour session a week from 6 to 9 p.m.

Once the course is completed, the volunteers will assist clients who may not need a professional counsellor, but would benefit from the support of a skilled volunteer.

“They would check in on them (clients) every week or two. A lot of it is just listening sympathetically. If they notice something is going on, they can refer them back to a counsellor here," Swingle said.

Volunteers will be asked to contribute 150 hours in year – about three hours a week - but Swingle said that commitment is not written in stone.

Contact the resource centre via email at [email protected] for more information.

This is the first time the course has been offered since COVID interrupted the world.

“We had a lot of attrition due to COVID, so we are pretty excited to get it going again,” said Swingle.

For more information about the Family Resource Centre, click here.