Colne Open Door Centre offers hundreds of hours of free counselling a month to people facing mental illness or bereavement

Colne Open Door Centre in Great George Street offers unlimited therapy sessions to people in need from Monday to Saturday. The client will decide with the therapist when they are ready for the sessions to come to an end.

The charity offered more than 400 hours of counselling face-to-face in the past month and around 200 by telephone.

Speaking about the increased demand for emotional support in the community, manager Nick Alderson said: “We have people as far as Bury coming to us. It’s a much-needed service in the area.

"I have been here for two years, and the amount of trauma [people are facing] has become more prevalent in the past few years. The stigma [around talking about mental health] has also reduced.”

The service, which has been running for 20 years, helps to ease pressures on the NHS, with Nick adding that just under half of referrals come from Mindsmatter. A further counselling room was added to the centre about a year ago to help meet rising demand for therapy.

Nick said: “I’m just happy we can provide this support for our community. We’re an extremely busy charity and we’re lucky we are well supported by the community. It’s well-needed.”

If you need help and support, please ring the centre on 01282 860342 to self-refer for counselling.

To make a donation to the charity, please visit https://checkout.justgiving.com/c/3262674 and for more information about its work, search for Colne Open Door Centre on Facebook.