Our Mission
A Positive Start CIC is dedicated to fostering emotional safety, healing, connection, and growth through trauma-informed, person-centred approaches that recognise the impact of lived experience and the importance of belonging.
We provide counselling, psychotherapy, early-intervention programmes, psycho-education, and social-emotional learning in individual, group, school, and community settings across the Scottish Borders.
Our work supports people to:
- understand their nervous system responses
- strengthen emotional regulation and resilience
- rebuild trust in themselves and others
- develop confidence, connection, and self-worth
- access support earlier, before difficulties become more established
Alongside therapeutic support, we deliver preventative education programmes for children, parents, professionals, and communities — helping create environments where safety, understanding, and wellbeing can grow together.
Community connection sits at the heart of our approach. Our Reconnect and Regulate programme demonstrated how powerful shared learning spaces can be in strengthening confidence, reducing isolation, and supporting emotional recovery across the Scottish Borders. Building on this experience, we are developing a restorative rural wellbeing community at Harestanes — a space where individuals, families, and professionals can come together to learn, reflect, and reconnect in safe and supportive ways.
We believe healing happens not only through therapy, but through relationships, understanding, creativity, and community.
As we often say at A Positive Start CIC:
Trauma separates us from ourselves and from others. Healing reunites us.
Through counselling, creative learning, safeguarding education, early-intervention pathways, and community initiatives, A Positive Start CIC contributes to the development of healthier, more connected, trauma-informed futures.
Deborah J Crozier
Founder, A Positive Start CIC
