Regina Public Library’s (RPL) drop-in counselling services started in the Central Branch just five few years ago, but with the demand rising, the services are expanding.
Walk-in and appointment sessions are now available at the Albert Branch, Regent Place Branch, Glen Elm Branch, and Central Library.
The free rapid-access counselling services are offered in partnership with Family Service Regina’s Thrive Rapid-Access Counselling.
Family Service Regina counsellors are on site at RPL for 60-minute walk-in conversations to help with concerns like anxiety, depression, addictions, stress, grief, relationship conflict, parenting, and other life challenges.
“It’s real counselling but it is in sort of a neutral zone,” Ashley Booth, a community librarian at the Central Library said. “Our libraries are our safe and welcoming spaces for everybody. There’s a little bit less of that stigma than walking into a clinic, a hospital or a doctor’s office.”
Booth said having the counselling take place in a library is a great way to extend their resources once they leave.
“We’re really happy to connect people to the resources and other items they need which could be things on the internet, books, e-books, musical instruments, it could be counsellors,” Booth explained.
Kirk Englot, the CEO of Family Service Regina, said because of the services offered, they have met people they likely would never see otherwise.
“We really want our counselling service to be easy to access in spaces that are comfortable and non-stigmatizing,” he said. “Our goal in the program is to just simplify how people access care, to make it more rapid and available quickly at a time of a person’s need.”
Englot said the hope is to add more Library locations in the future.