Relate and the expense...

BeenieCat

Me and OH have been for an initial session with Relate,which we paid £35 for.

At the end of the session we were given a form to return if we wished to carry on.... We didn't feel we'd touched upon anything important during session 1 so we decided to carry on.

Anyway we are both currently unemployed after redundancy so i was hoping it would be a voluntary donation for the continuing sessions. They said we must pay £30 for each session!

I've since read around on the internet that other Relate centres DO ask for voluntary donations, and while the costs may seem worth it for others, and certainly we want this help - but this is amount of money is not realistic for us and will only lead to more trouble at home as we are really scrimping this month due to paying for this 2nd session.

I don't know what the etiquette is in this situation, but is it common/normal to explain things are tight and ask to pay less? Or is it a case of tough luck??

Thanks

Errata

How about explaining your unemployment and money difficulties to them and asking if there is anything they can do to help you ?

bigmomma051204

This may not help at all, but i work for a childrens centre....we link in closely with Relate and we offer people FREE sessions when booked through the childrens centre. Now i dont know if you even have children, so as i said, it may not help. And not ALL childrens centres do this so again may be no help. But worth finding out maybe??

BeenieCat

Well i didn't ask outright but i did sound less than impressed when she asked for card details, as i was surprised it would be so much. I would have asked if i'd known it was a common thing to do but i didn't want to feel like a cheapskate

BeenieCat

bigmomma051204 wrote: »

This may not help at all, but i work for a childrens centre....we link in closely with Relate and we offer people FREE sessions when booked through the childrens centre. Now i dont know if you even have children, so as i said, it may not help. And not ALL childrens centres do this so again may be no help. But worth finding out maybe??

I live near SureStart but my child is school age so we're no longer registered with them. I'm currently pregnant though so we'll be back with them in around 6 months! lol

Floss

I would ask what scheme they have for low income couples.

However, please do remember that they are a charity, their counsellors are highly trained and skilled and those skills are constantly kept up-to-date, and they get very little Government funding for the valuable services they provide.

(And no, I don't work for them!)

fernliebee

If you are pregnant and have one child even if they are school age you should be able to access it through sure start. Give them a call and check, if they are not over run they may have space for you. Hope you get it sorted soon, no fun having extra things to worry about on top of being pregnant and trying to get back on track with partner.

BeenieCat

Hi Floss, thanks. Yes i appreciate their service is invaluable and i realise even at £30 per session it probably doesn't cover their costs, but we've already paid £65 and that's considerably more than we have to live on after bills per week at the minute.

Thanks fernliebee i will certainly ring them and ask about it, as we just need help in talking properly at the moment, without fighting and it's taking it's toll on us.

TotallyBroke

I went to relate, we had an initial consultation with them. We then had to wait to be assigned to a counsellor I explained that all we could afford to pay was £10. The counsellor we saw accepted that we pay him £10 for his time and we paid him each week.