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Our History
Respect for All (RfA) was established in 2002 by four counsellors who had professional and personal experience of working with autistic people and people with learning disabilities. Through their work, they recognised a significant gap in both provision and understanding for this client group. In response, they founded RfA to provide skilled, specialist, and timely counselling support across Greater Manchester.
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As RfA’s reputation grew, the organisation gained charitable status, enabling it to secure a range of grant funding, including support from the Lloyds TSB Foundation, Trusthouse Foundation, and notably a five-year grant from the National Lottery.
In recent years, RfA has become widely recognised across Greater Manchester and is highly regarded by neurodivergent communities and partner organisations as a specialist provider of mental health support for autistic people and people with learning disabilities. Our ongoing partnership work with the NHS and other neurodivergent-led organisations across Greater Manchester has led to a formal NHS contract to deliver our services for autistic people from April 2026.
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Today, RfA works with a team of 38 self-employed counsellors and 18 student placements, each choosing the number of hours they work. Our counsellors bring a diverse range of skills, experiences, expertise, genders, and ethnicities, enabling us to offer a wide range of therapeutic approaches. All of our counsellors and students have personal or lived experience of autism and/or learning disabilities. Many of our students go on to work with us after qualifying.
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RfA operates fully remotely and does not have a physical office base.
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If you are a student, volunteer or counsellor interested in joining our team, please visit our recruitment page.
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Who Are Our Clients?
Learning Disabled People
A learning-disabled person can have difficulties in understanding new or complex information and may find it hard to cope independently. These difficulties have been present from an early age.
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There are many other kinds of learning difficulties, for example “specific learning difficulties” such as dyslexia, or people with head injuries or recovering from a stroke. We are sorry our service does not include people with these kinds of difficulties. Please contact us if you are not sure whether you would be eligible for our service.
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Learning disability or limited communication skills do not prevent you from taking part in counselling, but some mainstream services have difficulty offering the flexibility and understanding needed.
Autistic People
Autism is a lifelong neurodevelopmental difference that affects how a person communicates, relates to others, and experiences the world around them. Autistic people may think, learn, and process information in different ways, and may have particular strengths, interests, or ways of understanding the world.
Many autistic people experience differences in sensory processing, such as being more or less sensitive to sounds, touch, taste, smell, light, or colours. They may also prefer routines, find change challenging, or communicate and express themselves in ways that differ from non-autistic people.
Autism is a spectrum, which means it affects people in different ways. Some autistic people may need a high level of support in daily life, while others may live fully independently but may still benefit from understanding more about their autism and want some support.
Getting an autism diagnosis can sometimes be difficult or take time. You do not need a formal diagnosis to access our service, but you should idealy be on a diagnosis pathway. If you are unsure whether you are eligible, please feel free to contact us.
Families and Carers
We believe that a holistic approach is crucial when working with clients. Families and carers can be such an important part of everyone's lives.
We work with families and carers to explore and better understand autism and learning disability in the context of relationships, family dynamics and how your beliefs and society influences how we think, feel and act.
For families and carers the most difficult part of accessing our service can be finding the time! We try to be as flexible as possible with regards to how we support you. This could be online or in person or over the phone. We can also help to signpost to other agencies which may be of use.
