Community Center Shanghai (CCS) is committed to providing reduced rate or pro bono counseling to those who have financial need and who cannot manage normal counseling rates. Between the fall of 2020 and summer of 2021, CCS counselors provided Subsidized Counseling (deeply discounted or free counseling) sessions to more than 30 individual and/or family units, offering a total of more than 275 hours of subsidized counseling. With each passing month, the number of subsidized clients continues to increase as the community learns that we offer this support. Our goal is to be able to provide this kind of support on a continual basis and to increase number of people we can help.

To help you better understand who subsidized counseling helps, here is a brief description of just a few of the many who have benefitted from CCS subsidized counseling in the last year:

Client A: Domestic violence survivor who is now out of the relationship after three months of counseling. No longer in contact with the abuser, she has begun to rebuild her life. She is safe and doing well, learning, and establishing healthy boundaries for herself and what she expects and needs from a partner as well as other relationships in her life. This individual also has a mental health diagnosis and is working on developing skills to cope with it as well.

Client B:  Teenager who struggles with depression, substance abuse issues, and self-injury as a result of years of witnessing domestic violence in the home and also being on the receiving end of the violence and abuse. This teen is beginning to address the trauma experienced in childhood and find healthy ways to deal with it rather than trying to numb and avoid it.

Client C:  Individual who was fired following an acute mental health episode that occurred at the workplace. CCS Counseling supported this client through a hospital stay and until arrangements could be made for the individual to return to the home country.

Client D: Sexual assault, cyber bullying, and sexual harassment survivor, now stabilized after suicidal ideation and episodes of substance abuse that were impacting her ability to function professionally while job hunting as she is currently in a long period of unemployment. She is very engaged in her therapy, now feeling much more hopeful about the future, and has said that apart from her university education, therapy is the best thing she has done in her life and gives tremendous credit to the counseling support for helping keep her alive.

Young Adults: CCS Counselors provided pro bono counseling to several students as they finished up and graduated from degree programs but struggled to find jobs due to circumstances related to the pandemic.

Grieving Families: CCS Counselors provided pro bono counseling support to two different families who lost children unexpectedly and faced tremendous expenses and overwhelming logistical details on top of the grief and loss.

Groups: Living abroad can be challenging in the best of times and these last couple years with the pandemic have been especially difficult. CCS Counseling offers a free Surviving and Thriving during Covid-19 Support Group and also a Grief & Loss Support Group where community members can come together and support each other through these difficult days.

In order to be able to continue to offer and expand this kind of low cost or free support, we need your help!  For more information on how you can contribute, please contact counseling@communitycenter.cn for more details.

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