On 15^th May, Youth Concern officially welcomed four new counselling students to our team. Bex, Jon, Marlene and Zsuzsanna will make the most enormous difference to some of Aylesbury Vale’s 13-25 year olds.

On Thursday evening, we asked the students if they knew it was mental health awareness week. But who needs an awareness week when you’re a counsellor? Mental health will be on their minds all the time, just as it is on ours.

Demand for our counselling service increased yet again last year. We provided counselling, free of charge, to 60 young people at a time (up from 50 year the previous year), and 113 individual young people (up from 105 the year before). We’re currently counselling 67 young people.

Despite the increase in numbers of young people counselled, we have continued to deliver high quality support: last year young people receiving counselling once again scored the service they received at 4.8 / 5.

We receive referrals from young people directly, adult mental health services, social care, schools, charities and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). The statutory services value not only the psychological support we offer 13-25 year olds but also our practical and holistic support. In Aylesbury Vale we are the only agency able to respond in this way.

If you’d like to find out more about our counselling service, for anyone aged 13-25 with a connection to Aylesbury Vale, please get in touch.