Counselling: Broader Sex/Gender Representation

CAAGe, the Campaign Against Adult Grooming, is looking for several new counsellors/counselling psychologists for us to refer victims/survivors to.

We are aware that as we grow we need more sex gender representation to make awareness and services more accessible to others.

This includes, but is far from limited to:

  • Men ‘in general’. Due to cultural norms, many men are afraid to speak up when they’ve been groomed, especially when they’ve groomed by women. Classic examples are ‘Russian Bride’ romance type scams. Some people may find it easier to talk to a man.

  • The African/afro-Caribbean community. We are very keen to have different ‘black’ voices represented within the ranks of our counsellors - we are conscious that there are vast differences in experiences, and for someone who has been groomed, knowing that someone counselling them has a head start on understanding their lived experience can be reassuring.

  • The gay community. The gay community face numerous challenges when it comes to grooming, particularly in the workplace and when first ‘coming out’. In the current climate, many feel that their identity and freedoms, hard fought for, are being eroded. Whilst we can all empathise, indeed many of us are of an age when we joined the fight for these freedoms, we also believe that it would be a step forward for someone/people with lived experience to be offering counselling.

  • The trans community. Despite the appearances presented in the media, trans people face massive challenges when it comes to grooming. Historically, judgements delivered in the laws of rape by deception militate against the trans community. And in the current, polarised climate, it is easy to see how people can be manipulated or abused. It is therefore imperative that we have various counsellors with a good grasp on the issues facing trans people who are being groomed. We suspect that many are not coming forward because of the current, heated climate.

  • Non-Binary, Gender Queer, and Gender Fluid people. It’s easy to see how people’s gender identity can be manipulated and/or used against them. In an ideal world we would have a counsellor to help us support with with each gender identity but

Role requirements:

  • Fully qualified and with at least two years experience;

  • Capacity to take on additional counselling clients;

  • Prepared to invest time in understanding why grooming requires a different approach to other types of counselling;

  • Tolerance of people with different views to our own;

  • A passion for involvement in CAAGe and its aims of raising awareness of, and campaigning against, adult grooming, some of which should clearly be criminalised, some of which is a case of raising awareness, and some of which is already criminal;

  • Prepared to work as a team and help other team members better understand issues facing their own communities specifically;

  • You will be prepared to help us with the direction that CAAGe takes in future.

We expect to be offering training courses for counsellors in the near future. You will be offered this training free, as well as being able to contribute should you choose. We hope you will help us look at the course from different perspectives, and have the maturity to understand the points of view of other people even if we disagree with them.

By having a diverse community we hope to have a positive influence.

Nice to have:

  • Experience of (adult) grooming or understanding of a related part of grooming - such as elder abuse, cults, modern day slavery, clergy abuse, human trafficking;

  • The patience to explain to/help other members of the CAAGe community and the people we help the specific challenges of your own community/communities;

  • Experience of campaigning organisations;

  • Awareness of gender issues and rights;

  • May optionally undertake work as as a spokesperson for the organisation.

That's a big list - and we absolutely don't expect anyone to have it ALL.

How we work with counsellors

At present we are not registered as a charity - we are primarily here to listen, signpost help, research and raise awareness.

We plan to become a charity in future, but at the moment we have no income sources. We are looking at ways of raising funds ourselves to help sponsor the counselling we offer, but at the moment must charge. You have total control over how much work you take on and what you charge.

CAAGe does not take any money from specifically recruited counsellors in exchange for referrals, but ask instead that you offer us some time to guide our direction and check over relevant materials that we are going to issue publicly.

To find out more, contact CAAGe