We are part of Herne Bay Counselling Service, a registered charity that sits in the heart of the community, serving Herne Bay and the surrounding areas. We were established in 2015 and offer a range of counselling services for adults and young people.
Our Service
We are proud to offer private and confidential counselling for children and young people aged 11-17 who need support with the difficulties they are facing in life. Our experienced and qualified counsellors provide a creative, supportive, safe and respectful environment where young people can bring their difficulties, no matter how big or small.
The sessions are offered weekly, on the same day and time every week. We are open in the day and evening, Monday to Saturday.
We recognise that each young person is an individual with their own personality and different level of development. Each counselling session will be child focused as we help them make sense of their world. We then tailor the therapy to meet their particular needs. The young people who use our service are not judged; we build a trusting relationship where they can express and think about their worries.
We offer a sliding scale of suggested donations for the sessions from £10 to £35 per session depending on your household income and ability to pay.
Our counsellors use a range of therapeutic techniques to suit the individual young person. We listen and build a warm, friendly and trusting relationship where individual struggles can be explored.
Our counsellors help young people deal with painful emotional issues. Therapy provides a safe space for them to express and explore difficult feelings. Sometimes it is easier to talk to a stranger than to parents, relatives or friends.
During the session the counsellor will listen and help to find answers to problems.
Our approach allows young people to express themselves in different ways through talking and listening, creative work and play. Our experienced therapists use child-friendly therapy techniques that include games, activities, storytelling and creative work.
Our counsellors listen and provide an environment where the young people can look at their problems, their triggers and develop strategies to cope and feel better, now and in the future.
We understand that making that first step to come for counselling can sometimes be daunting and takes a lot of courage both for you and the young person you have parental responsibility for or is in your care. You can give us a call or send us an email and we can talk about how counselling may be able to help.
If we are unable to take your call straight away, please leave your first name and number and we will call you back as soon as we can.
We will then take some details from you and ask you a few questions on behalf of the young person. Please remember that everything you say is confidential.
One of our counsellors will then call you to arrange the first session at a time and on a day suitable for your child or young person. This session allows them to get a feel for what it may be like working with their counsellor.
Some of the things we can help with are:
Anger is a normal and healthy reaction when things don’t go the way we expected, life feels unfair or people upset or hurt us. It can be a helpful thing - letting us know that something is wrong or not okay with us. Sometimes it is difficult to manage angry feelings and these feelings feel overwhelming and can affect school life and relationships, leaving you feeling unhappy.
Anxiety is something everyone experiences at times, and feeling anxious is a perfectly natural reaction to some situations (like exams or problems with friendships). But sometimes feelings of anxiety can be constant, overwhelming or out of proportion to the situation and this can affect your day-to-day life.
If you're being bullied, whether it's online or at school, college or work, it can be really difficult and leave you feeling hurt. It can come in the form of verbal abuse or being physically hurt. Bullying can be a one-off or it can go on for a long time. And bullying can happen to anyone.
Depression is one of the most common types of mental illness. We all feel low or down at times, but if your negative emotions last a long time or feel very severe, you may have depression. Depression can happen as a reaction to something like abuse, bullying or family breakdown, but it can also run in families. It's not the same as manic depression, which is another term for bipolar disorder.
We're all likely to experience the loss of a friend or loved one. Whenever it happens, it will be a difficult time. Grief affects us in different ways. When we are bereaved, we are likely to feel waves of emotions as we come to terms with loss. These can include sadness, guilt, shock and anger. All are normal after a death. There's no right or wrong way to feel.
Sometimes important life events make us feel lonely, like changing school, moving home or family breakdowns. We may also face discrimination, which can make us feel isolated or excluded. We may be isolated physically or feel alone in a crowd, or we might be emotionally isolated because of something we have experienced that's difficult to share.
Self-esteem is how you feel about yourself. Most young people will have dips in self-esteem as they go through different stages or challenges in life, and there are different pressures that may affect them - including social media, bullying, exams, family and friendship problems and abuse. Low self-esteem can affect your confidence, you may feel lonely and isolated and develop a negative image of yourself.
Stress is the body's reaction to feeling threatened or under pressure. It's very common, can be motivating to help us achieve things in our daily life, and can help us meet the demands of home, school and family life. But too much stress can affect our mood, our body and our relationships – especially when it feels out of our control. It can make us feel anxious and irritable, and affect our self-esteem.
When we experience difficulties or changes in a relationship – with a partner, friend or family member – it can affect our mental health in many ways. If you're worried about any of your relationships and how it's affecting you, it's worth talking it over with someone you can trust.
Peer pressure is when a person feels like they should do or not do something in order to fit in or be accepted by their friends or peers. Sometimes peer pressure can be a good thing when it encourages us to try something new or make a healthy change, but there are also times when a person can feel pressured to do something riskier or make a decision that could be harmful to their self or to others. That’s why it’s important to make sure your decisions are right for you based on what you think and try not to worry so much about what others are doing.
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