Towcester’s Preety Sidhu Joins the CAAGe Team

February 24, 2021, Towcester — Towcester-based integrative counsellor Preety Sidhu (of Healing Through Counselling) has joined the team of specialist counsellors at CAAGe, the Campaign Against Adult Grooming.

Integrative counselling is a patient/centred approached to psychotherapy which brings together different elements of specific therapies. Integrative therapists consider each person as a whole. They tailor counselling techniques and therapies to meet the individual’s needs and personal circumstances rather than focussing on a specific therapy.

They consider a person's personality and needs - behavioural, cognitive, and physiological - as well as addressing any social and spiritual aspects.

Grooming is where an individual (groomer), or group of people (“Grooming gangs”), builds an emotional connection with someone they’ve targeted to earn trust with the purpose of exploitation for their own motives: sexual abuse, financial, power kicks, even trafficking. Whilst illegal in Under 16s, adults are in a far more precarious position.

Preety holds a post graduate diploma in Psychology and an MSc in Integrative Counselling. She has four years in private practise and spent two years volunteering for local counselling charities (MIND in Rushden and The Lowdown in Northampton). She speaks English, Punjabi and Hindi fluently and has a fabulous understanding of adult grooming.

Preety Sidhu, counsellor,  said “When people are subjected to grooming techniques, they are often left with a lot to contend with. This can be as simple as bewilderment, as life changing as PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) or as dramatic as family or home break up. Helping them make sense of what has happened and back onto a path that will allow future, healthy relationships is a really rewarding role.”

“I am really excited to have Preety on board as a counsellor. It’s the first step toward creating a whole raft of specialist counsellors who can help adults who’ve been groomed,” said Claire Thompson, CAAGe Lead Campaigner. “There is a tendency to ‘victim blame’ when people have been subjected to the deceptions that characterise grooming. Grooming can be life-destroying and we want better outcomes and understanding for its victims.”

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About CAAGe

CAAGe (https://caage.org/ ) is a volunteer organisation, campaigning to raise awareness of adult grooming, offering listening services and signposting sources of help for victims, and researching grooming and its effects in order to help prevent it.

CAAGe counsellors have their own practises and charge for their services. CAAGe is currently seeking ways to be able to offer this counselling free of charge.