Cogwheel’s founder Jenny Joice was a practising Christian with a turbulent personal history. This inspired her to collaborate with others to open up a counselling centre that would be readily accessible to everyone. Cogwheel was founded in 1988 through her vision and determination to care for the counselling needs of the whole community. Cogwheel’s counselling service was initially provided on a voluntary basis from premises at St Andrews Street Baptist Church. From the outset, Jenny was adamant that the counselling should not be confined by the limitations of the training and practices of the prevailing Christian counselling courses.
Today, Cogwheel continues to provide affordable counselling to those who most need it and our founding Christian ethos, which includes compassion, respect, listening and healing, still provides a motivation for many within the charity. Cogwheel provides a service that is open to all, staffed by counsellors from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures, all of whom have undertaken rigorous professional training on accredited secular courses. The organisation seeks to provide a unique and effective therapeutic service available to everyone, irrespective of their financial circumstances and personal beliefs.
Origins of the name “Cogwheel”
Jenny Joice explained the origin of the name Cogwheel:
"My father held a keen interest in both water mills and windmills. Even as a child, the cogwheel mechanisms seemed to embody a deep significance of human relationships. It was whilst contemplating the gear mechanisms on a visit to Quy and Houghton water mills that Cogwheel Counselling got its name. The consequences of effective connection and equally of misalignment or breakdown affects the whole working machinery of family life and ultimately productivity and wellbeing."
