Counselling & Member Care Services
Our Philosophy of Care
Our counsellors offer Christ-centred counselling that is theologically sound and clinically informed. Our counsellors understand the challenges and hardships of mission, and are here to support mission workers on their own personal and spiritual journeys. This may involve processing unresolved past experiences, such as trauma, or cultural misunderstandings, or working through current challenges, such as relational conflicts or ministry-family balance.
Any and all topics are discussed with empathy, non-judgement and respect, and understood through the lens of Scripture. Our clinical methodologies are aligned with and reflect the Christian worldview, and we seek understanding through a scriptural lens.
Individual Counselling
In individual counselling, our therapists provide a safe, supportive space to work through any issues or concerns. Common challenges include dealing with trauma, managing depression and anxiety, working through grief, and facing spiritual struggles.
Individual counselling is available to men and women of all ages.
Marital Counselling
Cross-cultural mission work places unique strains on a marriage. We are here to support couples to face these challenges supportively, lovingly, and as a successful team. Couples counselling can offer outside perspectives and offer space for both parties to feel heard and understood.
Family Counselling
We offer whole family counselling, that seeks to understand and support a family’s dynamics, and help each member feel like a valuable part of the family unit.
Living as a family in a different culture can be a challenging experience. Our counselling focuses on building strength, love and support within the family unit.
Youth Counselling
We offer counselling for children and adolescents of cross-cultural workers, to offer empathetic support for the unique challenges of living cross-culturally, such as coping with feeling like an outsider while developing their own identities, and struggles with adapting to changing environments.
Debriefing
Debriefing services are available for men and women. Debriefing is provided by Red Sea staff with mission experience and wisdom, to assist our members with processing challenging events, changes, and spiritual challenges.
Debriefing is available face-to-face in Cairns, or online through our secure system.
Intensive Counselling
For those travelling to Cairns seeking an intensive program, we can tailor-make plants to suit your travel times and availability. This is especially well-suited to those currently in the field who need to take a self-care break. We work flexibly and adaptively to meet the unique needs of every person we support.
Crisis Response
We are available for face-to-face and online crisis debriefing and crisis support. This is a key aspect of our member services, because our members know they have us here to support them through any crisis.
Skills Building
Counselling sessions may also be skills-focused, to better equip our members for long-term mission success.
In collaboration with their counsellor, members may decide to proactively learn conflict management skills, or develop their self-care toolkit, or focus on laying the foundations of resilience.
Who We Support
This service is primarily for Christian, cross culture workers living or working in the Asia Pacific region. This includes workers from all Christian missions agencies and Christian Church outreaches. This may be for those who are career missionaries, or for those who have taken part in a mission outreach for a few weeks. Trauma and culture shock are just as relevant for all who serve overseas or in indigenous communities, and sometimes, people need a little help working through what they have seen and experienced. Who better to guide them than someone who really understands? You may just need to debrief, and we can offer personal debriefs or group debriefs, or you might prefer working with one of our counsellors and working through specific issues, especially as they relate to trauma, spiritual issues or reverse culture shock.
This service is also for those who have served in Christian cross-cultural work and have now returned home or have retired. Many people who leave the mission field leave with unresolved issues, or with broken relationships. Many leave and are not supported well as they re-enter their home culture, some are even more injured when they return. These issues can impede the re-entry process, and can linger for many, many years. Our staff would love to come alongside you and allow you to tell your story, to really share how it made you feel, and how it has affected you since. These feelings can remain for many, many years and be a real burden. We would like to help you work through some of those feelings.
This service is open for Christian workers (clergy) also. Ministry, in this COVID era just got a little bit harder, didn’t it? Christian ministers often feel alone, unable to debrief or work through challenging issues. The expectations on them are often incredibly high, and many fail to live up to their own expectations for themselves, let alone those of others. The burnout rate amongst the clergy is alarming. More and more, we hear of good, committed pastors and church workers leaving the ministry and not coming back.