Hastings and Rother Counselling Service

About Hastings and Rother Counselling Service

Hastings and Rother Counselling Service provide counselling for people on benefits and low incomes in Hastings and the surrounding areas. They work with several other organisations in the area to provide counselling services including Pulse, counselling service for young people, Sussex Coast College student counselling and Seeds of Change, a service for those affected by domestic violence or physical or emotional abuse. HRCS is also a popular centre for trainee placements, which helps people gain experience for courses or accreditation.

The brief

HRCS hoped that the site would provide more information about their services to the people who need it most. They also needed a space where latest news could be posted along with workshops and new services. The website also needed to be fully accessible.

SCIP’s solution

HRCS run several training workshops throughout the year and for this reason SCIP used an events calendar on the website to promote upcoming events. This tool allows HRCS to list events in a module on the homepage while simultaneously creating new posts in the training section of the website with expanded information. This feature is easy to manage, displays events in date order and automatically deletes events when dates have passed.

Mark James, SCIP’s Web design and Databases Manager, on the design of the website said:

“Counselling is all about communicating clearly and overcoming barriers. This informed a great part of the design of the website right down to the speech bubbles containing vital information for service users. I tried to make the overall look of the website friendly and inviting and hope that it helps HRCS meet the needs of its clients.”