Questions
Honest answers.
Including the ones that are slightly awkward to ask. If yours isn’t here, write and ask it — you’ll get a straight answer, even when the answer is no.
01
What this actually is
You agree a time and a thing — the appointment, the class, the gallery, the shop, the hour of paperwork at your kitchen table. Goreti arrives, usually a few minutes early, and goes with you.
She doesn’t take over. If you want to do the talking, she’ll let you. If you’d rather she asked the questions, say so beforehand and she will. Afterwards there is normally a coffee and a conversation about something else entirely, which is often the part that matters.
No. Goreti has completed Counselling Skills at Levels 1, 2 and 3, which is training in listening properly — not a licence to practise therapy. She does not offer therapy or counselling and won’t pretend otherwise.
If something comes up that needs a professional, she’ll say so plainly and help you find the right person.
No, and it never quietly becomes that. No medication, no washing or dressing, no lifting, no medical or physical support. That is a regulated profession and you deserve someone properly qualified to do it.
Grounded Beside You works exclusively with women. It isn’t a judgement about anyone — it is the boundary the whole thing is built on, and it’s what makes both the one-to-one time and the gatherings work the way they do.
Probably, for the first ten minutes. Then it stops being awkward, because you’re not sitting opposite each other having A Conversation — you’re walking somewhere, or queueing, or looking at the same painting.
You don’t have to explain yourself, justify why you’re doing this, or produce your life story over lunch.
02
Practical things
Chichester and roughly a twenty-five-minute radius — the Witterings, Bosham, Selsey, Emsworth, the villages in between, Midhurst on a good run. That is a deliberate limit: it means Goreti can be consistent rather than cancelling. If you’re just outside it, ask anyway.
The community group is free. The Circle is £25 a month. A gathering is £45. A single afternoon — three hours, one-to-one — is £150. Ongoing Beside You support is £395, £650 or £950 a month depending on how much time you want each month.
Every figure is set out on the services page. Nothing is quoted only on request.
The price covers Goreti’s time and her travel within the usual radius. Your own costs are yours — the class fee, the ticket, your lunch, your parking. She covers hers.
Usually about a week for one-to-one time, though it’s worth asking if something has come up sooner. Ongoing support is planned at the start of each month. This is arranged time — Goreti isn’t an out-of-hours service and won’t promise to be one.
By bank transfer against an invoice. A one-off afternoon is invoiced after it’s agreed; monthly support is invoiced monthly in advance. No card details are stored anywhere.
Yes. Anything ongoing takes one month’s notice, in writing, from either side — and you never have to give a reason. A single afternoon has nothing to stop; it ends when it ends.
03
Trust and boundaries
Yes. What you say stays between the two of you. Goreti won’t discuss you with your family, and if a relative arranged the introduction they don’t get a report afterwards.
The one exception is serious risk to you or someone else, where she may have to involve someone. She would tell you she was doing it.
Yes — public liability insurance is in place and an enhanced DBS check is held. You’re welcome to ask to see both before anything begins, and it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to ask.
Ongoing support has a short written agreement setting out what’s included, what it costs and how either of you ends it. No jargon, and nothing on page four you weren’t told about on page one. A single afternoon is confirmed by email.
No personal or medical care. No therapy. No medication. No handling of your money or banking. No signing things on your behalf. And no making your decisions for you — Goreti will sit beside you while you make them, which is a different job entirely.
04
Questions from daughters
You can start the conversation, and many daughters do. But she decides — she’ll speak to Goreti herself, and nothing is agreed over her head.
There is a page written specifically for this, including how to raise it without it landing as pity.
No. You’ll know the time is happening and you’ll be told about anything practical that affects the arrangement. What is said between them is theirs. That boundary is exactly why she is able to trust it.
Ask the one that isn’t here.
Three lines is plenty, and you don’t have to explain your whole situation to send them.