The only charity which provides counselling to survivors of childhood sexual abuse in west wales is in serious danger of closing.

Seren became a registered charity in 1997 and has gradually developed and expanded its services to provide counselling in Cardigan, Carmarthen and Haverfordwest.

In addition to one-to-one counselling for individual clients and peer supervision, the charity provides post counselling groups and workshops to clients as after care services and psycho-education groups.

Training is also offered by the organisation to those working with people who were abused as children so that they can do so more effectively.

The charity has 14 voluntary councillors who are currently dealing with 25 cases between them.

Unfortunately, funding has been increasingly difficult for the group to secure which means that the service is under threat and severely curtailed.

Seren co-ordinator Kay Anstee said: “It has been a very difficult decision but we have no choice but to consider dissolving the charity due to the lack of funding.

“Our AGM takes place month where the motion will be raised to decide whether the charity can continue, but we are serious danger.

“The demand for our service is huge and unfortunately we had to close our waiting list in May this year.

“We have 38 people on our waiting list at the moment and we have pledged that they will all be seen by one of our councillors.”

The group has previously received statutory funding from the Welsh Government but more is needed in order for the group to continue helping their clients.

“We are the only service in the rural west Wales area and we get referrals from inquiries and we have evidence to prove that we have saved people’s lives” added Kay, who has been involved with the charity for two years.

“We are now desperate for help and we hope that some miracle happens so that we can keep our charity open.”

Chair of trustees Anne Beyer added: “Each client has six sessions fortnightly and we provide a high quality service for people who have had a traumatic childhood.

“To get people to speak out is hard enough so if we close then the problem is only going to get worse.”

To help Seren, you can donate at seren-wales.org.uk