Accessing our services
Self-Referral
Welcome to HSTAR Scotland's Self-Referral Form.
If you would like to see one of our therapists, please let us know by completing the form below.
Our counselling therapy is available to women aged 16 and over, who are residing in Scotland and are in a safe place. You will hear from a member of our administration team within three working days after you submit the online referral form.
We may decide to turn down or postpone a referral if you:
• have a current complex mental health diagnosis, severe substance abuse issue or severe eating disorder.
• are seeking counselling in order to support a court case or is court-mandated for therapy.
• are currently living with a perpetrator of domestic or sexual abuse.
You should not be receiving any other counselling support at the time of self-referral, you must notify us about any ongoing medical treatment about your physical and mental health wellbeing. Working with our women requires ensuring they are not receiving therapy, mental health treatment, or health care from another mental health professional, otherwise they may receive inadequate or harmful treatment. This is why HSTAR asks every potential client if this is the case..
It is common practice for third sector organisations to enlist the assistance of student therapists. It is not unsafe due to the fact that the students' fitness for practice is assessed at the start of their studies. Students are supervised by their supervisors, who are ultimately responsible for ensuring the client's wellbeing. A supervisor is a fully qualified and experienced therapist.
You should not use this service if you feel suicidal, engaging in significant self-harm, or unable to keep yourself safe. Our trauma recovery therapies are not crisis, emergency or intervention services. If you were at risk of self-harm or suicidal thoughts/attempts within the last 12 weeks, please let us know. We might not be able to assist you at the moment but we are here to guide you where you could get support with rebuilding your sense of safety prior to the therapies with HSTAR Scotland.
Click here for your self-referral form.
External Referral
Please read before referring your client to us.
Our free of charge trauma recovery counselling is currently available to Forth Valley residents only. If your client is residing outside the Forth Valley area that we cannot cover the full costs of therapy. Our therapy will be offered at reduced charity rate of £30 per hour, and HSTAR will take responsibility of remaining costs of services. We understand that this may still be a significant expense for some individuals. However, until we secure additional funding, we regretfully cannot extend our free therapy support to beneficiaries residing outside the Forth Valley.
A woman referred by your organisation must be over 16, must be a resident of Scotland and be in a safe place (we support survivors of trauma or abuse). The average waiting time from receiving referral to the first therapy session may take up to 6 weeks, the Intake Assessment call will be made within 4 weeks from the referral date. We prioritise inclusion and diversity across all our services and we welcome women: survivors with historical experience of domestic or sexual abuse, childhood sexual abuse or harmful practices from minoritised communities who have experiences of racism, discrimination, or social exclusion from refugee backgrounds with experience of trafficking or other human rights abuses from migrant backgrounds where English is not your first language (we offer therapy in 20 languages), currently coping with bereavement.
Whilst we assess on a case-by-case basis, it may be that HSTAR Scotland is not the right place for you at this time. In order to avoid long waiting times and disappointment, please consider the following when making a referral. We may decide to turn down or postpone a referral where a woman: has a current complex mental health diagnosis, severe substance abuse issue or severe eating disorder is seeking counselling in order to support a court case or is court-mandated for therapy is currently living with a perpetrator of domestic or sexual abuse. Also you need to be sure that client is in a safe place, and there is no risk of self-harm or/and suicidal thoughts/ behaviour. Our intake assessment is not a guarantee of counselling, but we will always work with you to find the right service, whether at the HSTAR Scotland or another organisation.
We recommend you and your organisation to assess each referred woman carefully for our therapy, so we can avoid her distress and disappointment. At the HSTAR Scotland we regard inquiries and counselling discussions as private and confidential. Any information provided will be treated in confidence. No information of any kind is given to anyone outside of the charity unless specifically requested in writing, although in rare circumstances we reserve the right to widen confidentiality if there appears to be a serious risk of harm.
Click here for an external party referral form.
Therapy Journey
- REFERRAL STAGE - over 75% are referrals received from other organisations, via our digital referral link. We also receive self-referrals via email, website link and phone.
- REFERRAL CONFIRMATION EMAIL - each newly referred/self-referred woman receives a welcome confirmation email, with detailed explanation of further steps regarding their enquiry.
- INTAKE CALL - based on your booking, qualified intake assessor of HSTAR runs a basic initial therapy intake call- this is very important stage, as sometimes women asking for therapy actually need more mental health wellbeing support, sometimes a budgeting advice, benefits welfare or even just to engage with one of our befrienders. This is also a stage when we measure and assess the risk, HSTAR supports women who are in a safe environment, and sometimes we must consider signposting internally to social work services to create an intervention referral (all our staff are DASH risk assessment qualified). Each call is person centred, the intake assessor has a trauma-informed warm approach and is fully trained.
- SERVICE PRE-APPROVAL email with attached digital link to Terms and Conditions and/or a Refundable Deposit Invoice (if applicable) will be sent to newly referred person
- Within 48 hours from receiving signed documents, a Therapy Coordinator will assess the most suitable therapist, looking carefully at language, ethnic, faith requirements, also focusing on individualised therapy needs to choose the most suitable model of therapy. Depending on the clients’availability and of the therapists’, service will be assigned and clients will be notified of the process. It may take up to 12 weeks to start therapy.
- SERVICE APPROVAL EMAIL which includes therapist contact details is sent to the client, also the service provider receives basic contact details to arrange a therapy directly with the client.
- Weekly Monitoring Form is required to be submitted by each Therapist/Service Provider, so that HSTAR can easily coordinate consistency and quality of services.
- Within 7 working days from the final session, HSTAR will ask clients to submit a digital feedback form and/or refundable deposit repayment request (if applicable), we might ask for additional follow up (such as online or phone chat) to gather more information about the experience of support from HSTAR for our charity Case Study. After receiving our client’s consent, our charity copywriter will look after the case study and before it is published, the draft will get emailed to our client for final approval and consent to share (we never share names and any personal details.