COSCA’s Counselling Skills Certificate starts on 15th October 2008 with Scottish Marriage Care. The course will be held within The Relationship Centre, Glasgow.

The course is an excellent starting point for anyone interested in enhancing personal and professional relationships or in the use of counselling skills in the workplace. It’s also the perfect first step for anyone interested in training as a counsellor. Learning more about counselling skills will:

Enhance communication and people skills
Support work relationships
Assist effective listening
Develop self-awareness and reflection

Further information can be found on The Relationship Centre website.

For an informal chat about the course or to request an application form, please contact Kathleen Conroy on 0141 222 2166 or email her.

In order to meet demand, Family Mediation South Lanarkshire’s East Kilbride Child Contact Centre will now open every Saturday.

For an informal chat about using the centre give Pauline Nimmo, Contact Centre Manager, a call on 01698 421 333.

Auxano (au-ksä’-n?) is Greek for “to grow” or “to increase” and the design team hope to help your organisation do just that.

We have to say, FamilySupport.org.uk simply wouldn’t be as easy to navigate and visually stunning were it not for the talented minds at Auxano Creative. The team worked with us on our site day and night to come up with the perfect online showcase of our services. If you’d like to have a chat about website design and development then get in touch with Susan Nelson at Auxano.

This is an excellent opportunity for people to help others in their community, gain valuable skills and experience and a university-accredited diploma in relationship counselling.

Relationship counselling helps people in unhappy marriages and relationships to reduce stress and change negative behaviours. Counselling has a wide-ranging positive impact on children, the extended family and the wider community.

If you’d like to find out more about SMC and training to become a relationship counsellor then why not attend our information session on Wednesday 28th May, 7.30pm at the Diocesan Centre, Corsington Road, Motherwell.

If you’d like an informal chat about the training then please call Margaret Morris on 0141 222 2166 or email her.

If you’re a parent or a professional looking to arrange contact or just looking to find out more about the new centre, please call the Contact Centre Manager, Pauline Nimmo on 01698 421 333 for an informal chat.

Direct costs associated with family breakdown include housing, and decreased employment. Slightly less direct are the costs of time taken off work and visits to the GP. There are then many indirect costs – such as educational failure and drug misuse, all things which are shown to be more likely in households where the parent’s relationship has broken down.

How much these cost the state – and how much of this cost can be attributed to relationship breakdown – is contested. The child of a teen parent, whose parents themselves separated, may go on to cost the state a disproportionately large amount over his lifetime. How much of this was due to the failure of his grandparents’ relationship? A family where the parent’s relationship has broken down is more likely to contain children indulging in anti-social behaviour. This, in turn, leads to their eviction. Such a family costs the taxpayer between £250,000 and £330,000. How much of this cost can be attributed to family breakdown?

Unsurprisingly, the costs of family breakdown are exaggerated or downplayed according to viewpoints. One of the most recent costings came from the Social Justice Policy Group. Their analysis resulted in a cost to the nation of between £20 and £24billion, or £680-£820 per taxpayer. This included both direct and indirect costs.

Recent research has found couples wait an average of eight years before seeking help, which in many situations can be too late. FSPL recommends couples use Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to reassess their relationship with a ‘REFOCCUS’ relationship MOT. Good relationships don’t just happen, they need to be worked at.

You can find more information on REFOCCUS and our other relationship counselling services here.

The site also lists all the contact options for getting in touch with Family Mediation South Lanarkshire, Relate Lanarkshire and Scottish Marriage Care. So you can now email us your queries or requests for an initial appointment via the contact page.

Why not sign up to the FSPL newsletter via the the home page, we’ll keep you up to date on the latest developments in counselling and mediation services across Lanarkshire. Your privacy is important to us, we promise not to send more than one newsletter per month and we will never pass your details onto a third party.

Special thanks goto Susan at The Web Design Loft whose hard work and dedication mean FSPL have such a user-friendly and attractive website. We’d also like to thank David at Meir Hosting who provided us with free professional hosting for the site. Finally, thanks to Colin at Pixels Ink design studio who created the Famly Support Partnership Lanarkshire logo.

If you’d like to know more about the work of FSPL please contact our Development Officer, Ross McCulloch.