Wavecare Counselling provides counselling to people for a broad range of issues. Counselling is provided in a safe and confidential environment by qualified and experienced practitioners.
Anxiety & Depression
Anxiety and sadness are normal and healthy reactions that happen to everyone in times of danger or in worrying situations or when we have experienced change or loss. Sometimes however, these emotions can feel out of proportion to the situation or particularly intense or last for long periods of time, and in this case it may be that you are experiencing an anxiety or depressive disorder.
Grief & Loss
When we have experienced the death of a loved one, we will often have a strong and ongoing emotional response to this. Likewise if we lose a relationship or particular job, or even if we lose a situation that we had hoped for, such as being unable to have children or to follow a certain career path, we can have a strong grief-like reaction. In these scenarios, a range of emotions would be quite appropriate and typical but sometimes we can feel quite overwhelmed and unable to function in this context.
Trauma
Sometimes we experience events that either cause us to fear for the safety or integrity of ourselves or someone else. These events might be a one-off (i.e., car accident) or ongoing (i.e., family violence). It is normal to have a strong emotional response to these events, but for various reasons sometimes it continues to linger with us and cause real disruption in our lives even when the trauma has stopped.
Anger
Anger is a normal human emotion and when it is managed properly it is not a problem. Everyone gets angry, – anger gives us important information and can be useful to help us deal with situations. Anger can become a problem when it occurs too frequently, is too intense, when it leads to aggressive behaviour, or when it disrupts your relationships. When anger begins to start creating issues either at home or elsewhere in your life, it is essential to learn ways of managing it.
Alcohol, Drug & Gambling
Alcohol, drugs and gambling are activities that cause considerable harm to many people. You might be comfortable with small amounts of these but if you find that you are doing these activities more often than you’d like or they are causing issues in other areas of your life, then it may be a problem.
Relationship Issues
We are social beings and our relationships are of prime importance to us. Unfortunately this can also be a source of an enormous stress if there are disruptions in our close relationships. Relationships can include all the types of interpersonal connections we have, from our romantic partnerships, through to the relationships we have with our parents or siblings or children, or even our friendships or work colleagues.
Family Violence
Domestic violence is also commonly known as family violence. Family violence is a pattern of abusive behaviour through which a person seeks to control and dominate others. Regardless of the form of violence (physical, sexual, verbal, emotional, psychological) or whether you have you have been subjected to it or witnessed it, family violence can take a huge toll.
Burnout
Whilst burnout is not a formal psychological condition, it is certainly a real issue for many.
Chronic Pain & Health Conditions
A good proportion of our population suffers from some form of chronic physical health condition.
Perinatal & Early Life Counselling
Perinatal Counselling was established to support mothers, fathers, couples and families through conception, pregnancy and the earliest stages of parenting. Having children is arguably one of the biggest life transitions many of us will make and it is subsequently a period when we can need most support and guidance.
Child & Adolescent Counselling
Children and adolescents, like adults, are susceptible to a wide range of mental health disorders. These may sometimes present differently to how it would later in life, but can be just as distressing to the individual and their family. Childhood and adolescence is also the period when various developmental or behavioural issues may either begin or first become noticeable.
Seniors Counselling
Growing older isn't always easy. Like other life transitions, it can bring new challenges, such as the devastating loss of a partner or close friend, a feeling of financial insecurity, physical changes and a change or loss of role.
Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal (VOCAT)
If you are victim of crime, you may be entitled to assistance from VOCAT. This will enable you to help recover from the effects of a crime and the flow-on effects this may have had on your life.by providing counselling that suits your needs.
Critical Incident and Emergency Management
Critical incidents usually occur suddenly and unexpectedly. Wavecare can provide counselling or debriefing to staff and to community members who have been exposed to a critical incident.
Employee Assistance Programme
An employee assistance programme (EAP) provides all eligible employees and family members' access to professional and confidential support services.
Glencare: Aged Care Programme
Glencare is a Planned Activity Group that brings together elderly citizens for a day filled with activities, fun and laughter. The core focus of this group is to promote social interaction, reduce isolation and encourage individuals to continue living independently.
Clinical Supervision
Clinical Supervision is about reflective practice, development of competence and confidence, feedback and challenge. Clinical Supervision is for school welfare workers, MCH Nurses, Counsellors and Psychologists. Wavecare can offer group or individual supervision as a regular arrangement, or for a special period of time due to a specific issue, e.g., a traumatic event or significant changes in a team or agency.
Counselling Costs
Wavecare offers low cost counselling services to everyone. The fees can be rebated by Medicare with a low gap fee, and bulk billing is available to health care card holders.
Anxiety & Depression
If for most of your day, you are feeling sad or irritable, fatigued, have limited motivation or enjoyment in the activities you would usually like, then you may be depressed. Depression will sometimes have an identifiable trigger, but other times there may be a more subtle decline in your mood, which means you do less, feel worse, so do less and so on. Anxiety, on the other hand, can leave you feeling panicked or agitated, create a range of physical symptoms (i.e., headaches, muscle tension, dizziness, gastrointestinal issues, etc.), mean you feel unable to relax and may lead you to avoid a variety of situations.
Fortunately, anxiety and depressive disorders are very amenable to psychological treatment. Whilst it might seem difficult to make the first step to seek help, it will almost uncertainly be your wisest move. Initially you will talk with your therapist and gain an understanding of what has lead you to this point. They will be able to give you some psycho-education about anxiety and depression. And then typically you will discuss some basic strategies about how to manage these disorders, which you will then enact outside of session.
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Grief & Loss
Grief and loss can present differently in different people. Some common emotional responses include: shock, anger, sadness, guilt, remorse, loneliness, anxiety, numbness, and so on. It is very typical for these emotions to fluctuate over the weeks/months/years after your loss and the practical implications may also vary as time goes by.
Grief is a normal process and you should allow yourself to go through this, but if you are feeling unable to cope or overwhelmed by your feelings, or if you are feeling that your reaction is unusual in some way, it may be that counselling might help you to understand or have more effective strategies for dealing with your loss.
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Trauma
Trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event such as an accident, natural disaster, sudden death, act of violence, etc. Immediately after the event, emotions such as fear, anger, denial or shock are common and appropriate. Sometimes however trauma can overwhelm your emotional system, leave you feeling that you do not have the skills to cope or that you feel unable to resume your normal life. Long term symptoms can include flashbacks, disturbed sleep patterns, strained relationships or even physical symptoms like headaches or nausea. In this case, psychological treatment may be helpful to increase your resources, help you manage your symptoms and for some people, process and consolidate your experiences. With trauma reactions in particular, the pace and nature of this will be led by the client themselves.
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Anger
Psychological treatments for anger help us to manage this emotion more effectively in both the short- and long-term. Initially this may involve understanding our thoughts, emotions and behaviours and applying skills to contain or deal more appropriately with our anger whilst in a situation. For instance, what strategies can we use to help not become so enraged or to calm ourselves or to stop aggressive behaviour. But then therapy might move to identifying patterns which are increasing the likelihood of anger, for instance, could we improve our communication skills or are there other emotions which underlie or trigger anger?
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Alcohol, Drugs & Gambling
Alcohol/Drugs
People tend to choose the substances that help them in some way, such as increasing pleasure, or decreasing emotional or physical pain. As alcohol and other drugs act directly on the central nervous system, they seem to be predictable and effective ways to change how a person feels - at least in the short-term.
Problems with alcohol and (legal or illicit) drugs come either because of what you do whilst under the influences of these substances or because of the long-terms effects. In the long-term, alcohol and drugs can be an issue if you need to take more to achieve the same effect, or they impact your functioning in a negative way.
Treatment for substance addiction may either look at ways you can replace the function of drugs and/or alcohol with other more healthy methods, to allow you to gradually reduce your intake. Or it might involve treatment of another mental health disorder which underlies the substance use.
Gambling
People gamble for various reasons, to win money, to be sociable, to escape from problems, for something to do, for excitement or to avoid other issues. But of course, gambling has all kinds of other effects, such as financial loss, disruption in relationships, anxiety and depression, and so on. Treatment for gambling is similar to substance addiction – replace the need it fills or fix the underlying problems.
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Relationship Counselling
Relationship counselling may be extremely helpful for all relationship stages and issues and for all types of relationships. This therapy may mean thinking about how to nurture or improve an existing relationship, reflecting on what’s not working well, or process a particular stressor or situation which has caused a rupture in your relationship. It may also mean discussing how to end a relationship in the most healthy and functional way possible.
The role of the counsellor is to facilitate discussions, provide support to all parties, and to give guidance on strategies which may be helpful. Our counsellors do not tell clients what to do, nor what decisions to make, but rather reflect back what they are noticing and give suggestions as to other ways to try to resolve an issue.
We typically see people together, however there can be circumstances where it can be helpful to see individuals separately, including as part of the assessment process. On some occasions we consider that a relationship is being significantly affected by either or both partners having an individual psychological issue or problem. In those cases, we will advise that one or both partners undergo individual counselling , sometimes prior to, or at other times concurrent with, couples counselling.
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Family Violence
Wavecare offers professional and specialised services to assist children, young people and adults affected by family violence. Services include:
- Counselling and support
- Information for the client and family members
- Referrals and liaison to other services
If you choose to seek help about this issue, our counsellors will not make decisions for you. Instead, you will be provided with a non-judgemental and supportive service for you to become informed, reflect on the issues and process your options.
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Burnout
It is used to describe the state of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion that people experience due to prolonged stress at their workplace. There may be various causes for burnout, such as high workload, lack of support, feeling ineffective or unappreciated, and so on. If you are feeling stressed at work but can’t see an obvious solution, it might be the time to talk with someone.
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Chronic Pain & Health Conditions
Whilst medication and other medical treatments will possibly be important to help manage these problems, psychological strategies will often play a pivotal role too. Whether it be the symptoms themselves, helping to manage factors, such as stress, which might exacerbate the physical condition or decreasing lifestyle risk factors (i.e., smoking, obesity, etc.), psychological treatments are a crucial part of the treatment plan
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Perinatal and Early Life Counselling
The perinatal period refers to the time encompassing pregnancy and the first postpartum year. The perinatal period is the time in a woman’s entire lifespan in which she is most likely to experience depression or anxiety. Having an infant or young child can be incredibly rewarding; it can also be incredibly complex and challenging.
Becoming a parent brings many changes to identity, emotion, communication and the balance between various roles. This can often lead to strong emotions, changes in important relationships, or barriers to utilizing previously helpful coping tools.
It is important to recognise that fathers and siblings may also require additional supports during this period to adjust to the life change that a child can bring.
Attachment and bonding, birth trauma, grief and loss or challenges with pregnancy and fertility may also be addressed in counselling.
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Child & Adolescent Counselling
We see children and teenagers for a wide range of issues.
Children and adolescents may be referred with the same types of issues as adults, for example, they can experience anxiety, depression, grief, relationship issues, and so on. Sometimes however this will present in a slightly different way to how it might for an adult, for example it is not uncommon for depression to present as irritability or acting out behaviour in younger people. Furthermore, children and adolescents have a whole range of issues which are quite unique to this life stage whether that be separation anxiety, school refusal, bullying or a range of other problems. For this reason, and because of the skills involved in engaging and developing rapport with young people, child and adolescent counselling tends to be a specialist service which Wavecare is able to provide
Child and adolescent counselling will typically involve other family members as well, although this is a little dependent on the age of the teen. For younger children, depending on the issue, sometimes the therapeutic work is mainly done with the caregivers who can then help the child implement the strategies suggested
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Seniors Counselling
Are you a senior who is suffering from anxiety and/or depression and would like to talk to someone about it? Are you a caregiver who is worried about the senior you’re caring for? Are you feeling depressed and over-burdened by caregiving? Are you a senior who is grieving the loss of a spouse? Do you feel like you have lost hope or meaning in your life? We have counsellors who are trained to work with seniors and can provide counselling in your home if you cannot easily come to us. We will also see clients in retirement villages.
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Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal (VOCAT)
Wavecare offers counselling to help with the recovery from the effects of crime. If you believe this applies to you, then initial inquiries should be directed to vocat.vic.gov.au.
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Critical Incident and Emergency Management
Sometimes events occur which cause us to have a strong emotional reaction or are outside the realm of our normal experience. At these times we might need to support either as an individual or as a team/organisation to process this event. Wavecare is able to help to de-brief, to provide people with accurate information and to educate them on what the impact of having experienced such an event may be.
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Employee Assistance Programme
Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) is a service in which counselling can be funded by your workplace. This therapeutic support can be for a wide range of issues, including stress, anxiety, depression, drug and/or alcohol issues, trauma, grief, and so on. EAP counselling is a completely confidential service, however your workplace simply needs to approve it. You will need to contact your workplace as to how to access this support. EAP counselling services are able to be provided either face-to-face or via telephone depending on the circumstances.
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Glencare: Aged Care Programme
Glencare (Planned Activity Group) is one of Wavecare’s long standing and highly regarded services that has been operating for more than 30 years. It is a closely knit group that embraces togetherness, creativity and respect for elderly people from all walks of life; a place that provides a warm and comfortable environment for our participants.
The activities offered at Glencare are carefully selected and tailored to the needs of each participant thereby promoting their autonomy, self-worth and physical and mental well-being.
Glencare also has a number of enthusiastic and dedicated volunteers who work tirelessly to support the programme and achieve the goals of the participants.
Glencare meets at the Glen Waverley Community Centre, 700 Waverley Road, Glen Waverley every Tuesday from 9.30am to 2.30pm.
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A nominal charge of $10 per session, which includes morning tea, lunch and activities, and $20 when an outing occurs.
Clinical Supervision
Supervision is an important part of working effectively and efficiently as a health professional. Whether this be done in a group or individual format, Wavecare can provide supervision. Within the Wavecare team, we have Clinical Psychologists who are Psychology Board of Australia (PsyBA) – approved supervisors
Counselling Costs
Wavecare offers low cost counselling services to everyone. The fees can be rebated by medicare with a low gap fee, and bulk billing is available to some health care card holders. With a mental health care plan, completed by your gp, the most you will be out of pocket will be up to $50.00.
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Wavecare Counselling & Support
Level 1, 2 Euneva Ave
Glen Waverley 3150
admin@wavecare.org.au
9560 6722
9560 6861
Opening hours:
| Mon: | 9am - 5pm |
| Tue: | 9am - 5pm |
| Wed: | 9am - 5pm |
| Thu: | 9am - 9pm (evenings by appointment) |
| Fri: | Closed |