Please complete the Personal Details form and click submit. It will then be sent to Diabetes Counselling Online Inc.

Please include as much or as little information as you like. Some areas of the form are mandatory - this is for our record keeping so we can give you the best service possible and statistics which assist us in seeking funding.

What happens next?

Once we have looked at your form, we will respond to you via email within a week. Each time you email us we will aim to reply within a week however, due to lack of funding this can be longer. Please be patient as we are a small charitable organisation, but we will always get back to you.. This will usually include questions about your situation and the problems, so that we can get to know more about you and what you are dealing with.

It may also include some ideas about how many sessions or conversations we may have and how this may happen.  This is like a "contract", but it is nothing formal, just a way to clarify how we agree to work together. It can be re-negotiated at any time, and we welcome your ideas about how you want to use the service and what you are getting out of it. This is all about you!

Under 14 years of age?

If you are under 14 years of age, we will ask you about whether you are ok for us to contact your parents as part of our counselling. It is important that we make sure you are safe and that your parents are involved in counselling if appropriate. We will not make contact with them without chatting with you about this first.

Notification of risk

If we have any concerns about any person under 18 being unsafe or at risk of any abuse of any kind we will always report this to the appropriate child protection authorities in the relevant state.

Waiting time

During the time you use this service, each time you e-mail us, we will try to respond to you within a week, but due to lack of funding this can be longer. You can respond to us when it suits you. At times you may experience delays due to our workload and when we are away from the office for training and leave, but we will always advise you about these times.

How much contact can I expect?

As a not-for-profit organisation with limited funding and high demands for services, we do have some guidelines as to how long we can work with you. For the purpose of this service, a counselling "session" is 1 message from you and a return message from us.

It may be that you only want or need 1 session and this may be enough for you. However, it is likely that we will need at least a couple of sessions.

We can generally provide up to 6 hours worth of counselling time with you.

For some people this might equate to many shorter emails, for others, it might be just a few, with each being a longer and more complex conversation.

In any case, we will keep a track of things and once we reach 6 hours, we will let you know and negotiate with you whether it is appropriate for us to have up to another 4 hours worth of sessions.

Usually after this point, we will need to refer you on elsewhere. However, again, we will discuss this with you as we go.

It is up to you how long there is between our sessions - sometimes this is a short as a day, or as long as many months.

We might also agree that you need to look for other avenues for support at earlier stages of our sessions. Many people find that they are able to resolve the problems enough during our contacts, whilst others find they would like to seek some face to face support once we finish.

Overseas Visitors

If you are from a country outside of Australia we may offer you personal counselling. We will assess your request and advise if this is possible. However to qualify for this you must be able to communicate in English; must not have an immediate safety threat; and must be prepared to pay a one off, up front fee of $250AUD for up to 6 hours worth of email counselling. This amount of counselling would usually cost up to $720.

This $250 fee can be paid via PayPal, direct bank deposit or Visa Card - we will provide details should you choose to proceed.

Please bear in mind we can not refer to other specific health care providers in overseas countries and we do not have the ability to work with your usual health care team. Any counselling undertaken with our service is at your own risk.

You are free to join our community at any time.

Online chat appointments

We may decide to make an appointment time for an online chat in a private, locked chat room. This is where we both go on-line at the same time and can bounce ideas and information back and forth in the "chat" rooms on the website. Generally such sessions last about an hour or so and can be helpful in addition to email counselling.

Telephone counselling

In some cases, in particular where you do not have easy access to the internet, we can provide telephone counselling. Sometimes people would like a telephone session at some point of their counselling, in addition to email or online chat. If so, a telephone session can be arranged for up to 1 hour.

In the majority of cases, people do find the internet alone to be fine. This can also be negotiated as we progress in counselling.
Phone: (08) 8365 4424
Mobile: 0410 301267

Ongoing counselling

If we decide that it would be helpful for you to continue with counselling after our contact has ended, you need to speak with your local doctor, diabetes educator, or medical centre about where you can go for more help. We will try to refer you to a face-face counsellor or other service if we are able, but as this is a National service, this is often very difficult for us to do that.

You can also look at the resources and links to see if there is a service you can go to.

Our online counselling services are supported by our fundraising, donations and our Founding Platinum Sponsor, Novo Nordisk