COSTS | MECCC

Counselling Costs at MECCC

Costs and payment

The individual counsellors and Melbourne East Christian Counselling Centre Incorporated. believe that the provision of Christian counselling is a responsibility that should be shared across the whole Christian community. They would like to avoid making the provision of counselling ministry conditional on a user-pays fee-for-service basis. So, they seek to cover the costs of counselling at the centre by the voluntary responses of counselees, and their families, friends and churches.

After considering all the time and inputs required to provide a quality counselling service (such as facility costs, writing notes, preparation for a counselling session, ongoing counsellor development, consultation and external supervision) we have found that an amount of around $120 per appointment is needed for our counsellors to receive an average income. However, to make their counselling as accessible as possible and encourage donations to MECCC Inc., our counsellors usually waive part of this and may also take individual circumstances into account.

So, after your counselling, if you do not have access to funding to cover the full costs of your sessions, you will be given an invoice from your counsellor for a reduced amount of up to $90 along with the option to request an ‘Application for Benefit’ form. Otherwise, your funding body will be invoiced at the full rate of up to $120 per session.

If you receive an invoice you will be able to respond in one or more of these ways . . .

You pay all or some of the invoiced amount directly to your counsellor as you are able.
You may fill out the MECCC Inc. 'Application for Benefit' form for a partial subsidy up the remaining invoice balance, assigning any benefit you receive to your counsellor. Subject to the discretion of MECCC Inc. and the availability of donated funds, the requested amount may be paid on your behalf to your counsellor. A health care concession card would usually be taken as indicating the appropriateness of a partial subsidy. Please note that the subsidy process is not managed by your counsellor.
You may prayerfully consider donating to MECCC Inc. to help subsidise the cost of your counselling and/or the counselling of others

We rely on donations to provide subsidies to those who otherwise could not afford counselling.