Sophia Town Community Counselling

About Sophiatown Community Psychological Services

Sophiatown Community Psychological Services (sophiatowncounselling.co.za) is a Johannesburg-based NPO providing free, culturally and socially appropriate psychosocial support to some of the city's most vulnerable communities. Led by Executive Director and Clinical Psychologist Johanna Kistner, the organisation describes itself as a "Hope Factory" — a space committed to nurturing hope and helping clients transform narratives of suffering into stories of resilience and agency.

The organisation targets residents of the inner city and communities in and around Soweto who are facing emotional and psychological challenges driven by social, economic, and political conditions. Their services are explicitly designed for people who could not otherwise access or afford mental health care.

Services and Relevance to GBV

Adult Counselling is offered to adults experiencing a wide range of distress including relationship difficulties, depression, anxiety, bereavement, and trauma arising from violence. The organisation explicitly lists violence in the home and in the community as a primary reason clients seek support — making GBV survivors a core constituency.

Children's Psychosocial Support programmes include structured support groups and creative therapeutic interventions for children whose emotional wellbeing has been impacted by HIV/AIDS and bereavement, forced displacement, community violence, and abuse. The Suitcase Group supports newly arrived migrant and refugee children; the Bertrams for Change programme creates a safe park space for children to talk.

Teenage Lekgotlas provide adolescents with a peer support "village assembly" space to discuss issues that affect them — including violence, abuse, and the pressures of growing up in poverty — encouraging young people to recognise choices, develop responsibility, and build futures beyond the limitations poverty and violence impose.

Siyalalela Project reaches isolated HIV-positive individuals in townships and informal settlements who have lost all social support and cannot access treatment on their own — a population at high risk of GBV and other forms of exploitation.

Carer Support is offered to community-based workers, NGO staff, and leaders in the broader network of NPOs, recognising the emotional burden carried by frontline workers in the GBV sector.

Locations

Services are delivered at multiple community centres across Johannesburg: - Westdene (main office): 4 Lancaster Road, Westdene - Bertrams: 20 Derby Road, Bertrams - Additionally: Melpark, Noordgesig, Mzimhlophe, and Lawley

The website (sophiatowncounselling.co.za) is currently down for maintenance. All contact details below are from published sources.