We have been helping people in Northumberland for 40 years with their mental health and wellbeing needs.
An Overview
The information on this page is designed to highlight the important impact that Cygnus Support has on the local community. Over the last year alone, the counselling team managed to see over 1,100 counselling clients and our Community Link Worker (CLW) Team exceeded their annual target, providing support to over 1,300 patients.
We recognise that people’s mental health can be directly affected by many other factors and remain focused on working both directly, and with partners, to design and deliver holistic joined-up client pathways, with no wrong door.
The Figures
Feedback forms our counselling clients completed showed that:
• 70% showed a positive change in managing their mental health.
• 72% reported an increase in confidence.
• 66% reported an improvement in their relationships.
• 62% showed a positive change in their social networks.
Counselling:
One of the main ways that we can measure the progress a client has made throughout their counselling journey, is by using the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS). This involves ranking a series of statements between 1-5 and then the total score is added up to determine a client’s mental wellbeing. 0-31 points is considered to be very low. 32-40 is below average. 41-59 is average. 60-70 is above average. This is completed before and after a client accesses support. A 3 month follow up assessment is also sent out to clients.
The graph opposite shows a sample of the average scores from the counselling WEMWBS conducted over the past year. It shows that the average mental health and wellbeing score for the majority of clients had increased as a result of counselling. The scores from our sample of 3 month follow up data were slightly lower than the ending session, but remained higher than the initial session; indicating an overall positive impact.
A significant portion of our clients came to us experiencing below average WEMWBS scores. Thankfully, all of these clients had significantly improved and now have at least average score as a result of counselling intervention; even better still, many were seen to continue to improve long after their counselling support had come to an end.

Social Prescribing:
Our Community Link Workers also collect their own feedback for their Social Prescribing project. They devised a questionnaire of their own consisting of the questions listed below:
- How much effort did the CLW Team make to listen to the things that matter most to you and what you wanted help with?
- How much effort did the CLW Team make to include what you thought was most important to you, in the help they suggested?
- Was your involvement with the CLW Team a positive experience?
- Did the CLW Team help you achieve your goal(s) or if signposting only, was the information they provided useful?
- Do you feel less worried/anxious since the CLW Team has helped you with your problem?
- Would you recommend the CLW Service to others?
These statements were then ranked by patients between 1-5; with 1 representing strongly disagree/no effort, 2 representing disagree/little effort, 3 representing neither agree or disagree, 4 representing agree/some effort, and 5 representing strongly agree/lots of effort.

As shown opposite, 100% of the patients asked reported that they felt listened to and included, the input from the team was positive, their goals were achieved, they felt less worried, and would recommend the CLW service to others.
Quotes & Feedback









Annual Reports:
The information on this page is derived from our 2023-2024 Annual Report. You can read this, as well as some of our other recent reports, in full by clicking the buttons below.