About Us

We provide counselling and therapy for adults, children, young people and families and are based within Marvell House Children's Centre, Cranbourne Street, Hull.

Introducing Time to Listen CIC

Time to Listen, is a ‘not for profit’ community interest company (CIC) providing counselling and therapeutic services to people living in Hull and the surrounding area. The company was founded by Gail Thornton in June 2013 and specialises in supporting adults, children, young people and families with their emotional and mental health, offering early intervention to enable, maintain and improve wellbeing and life opportunities. Time to Listen has vast experience of working with attachment issues and developmental trauma. The company is an Ofsted registered Adoption Support Agency supporting those who are adopted and their adoption family.

Self referrals and referrals from professionals are welcomed via our online referral form.

At Time to Listen we believe that:

Families are the building blocks of communities.

Communities comprise families who share common attitudes, interests, values and goals, resulting in feelings of belonging and caring for each other.

Supporting vulnerable families at the earliest possible stage equips them with skills to raise well-adjusted children, enabling families to become strong community building blocks.

Today’s well-adjusted children can be tomorrow’s parents who carry forward those skills to raise the next generation of well-adjusted children, to build future communities.

Though there are other local services offering counselling and therapy for children and young people many have specific referral criteria (for example, the person must have a diagnosed mental health problem; or be in receipt of certain welfare benefits; or need to meet the access threshold for social care). However, there are a large proportion of children, young people and their families, in and around the city of Hull, that do not meet these criteria and they are not in a position to pay for private therapy, which is often all that is available to them. Time to Listen CIC does not receive any financial support from the local authority or the NHS. Therefore we are constantly searching and applying for external funding from charities and other grant providers. With successful charitable funding applications we can provide free access to our services for anyone living in Hull and East Riding who would otherwise not be in a position to access this help.

We are unique in that we are able to provide access to a wide range of individual and family focused therapeutic interventions with one simple request. The ‘one-stop-shop’ approach ensures that there is a fast response and eliminates the problem of searching around for a therapist to meet the needs of the individual and their family.

On 1st March 2023, after 10 years of dedication, Gail Thornton handed over the management reins of the company to Janet Woodhouse (Chief Executive) and Julie White (Clinical Director). Janet and Julie work with an amazing team of people to deliver the services offered by Time to Listen. Please visit our "Meet the Team" pages to view staff member's photographs and to read our staff's individual profiles.