The early help and counselling service run by Young Melksham to provide mental health support to young people aged 10 to 25 has set up a new telephone-based service to support young people during the Covid-19 emergency.
TeenTalk has been offering one to one counselling support for young people based at The Canberra Centre for over six years but the charity were forced to close the centre in mid-March as a result of the virus and have since been continuing the support for young people on the phone.
Chair of the Trustees of Young Melksham Jon Hubbard commented, “as soon as it was clear we would not be able to continue to deliver the popular one-to-one counselling in The Canberra Centre we put in the facility to continue to support those already receiving support on the phone instead. Fortunately, our existing infrastructure supports remote working and we were able to continue the service to those young people with virtually no break in service.
“Recognising the additional stresses and worries that #lockdown would bring for young people we also set up a brand-new service where young people could call in and speak with a counsellor without an appointment.”
The new service features a qualified young people’s counsellor being available to speak with young people every Tuesday and Friday afternoon, with an answerphone service throughout the rest of the week.
The new dedicated phone number for TeenTalk is 01225 667328, or young people can email hello@teentalk.org.uk to ask for a call back.
The team are keen to point out that using the drop-in service does not commit the user to a full course of counselling but instead is a opportunity to just have a chat with someone who can listen and help guide the user to finding a way to deal with the situation they face. This may include recommending referring themselves for more formal counselling, approaching another agency or simply invoking coping mechanisms but for most it is a chance to have a non-judgemental chat with a friendly voice.
TeenTalk’s popular one-to-one counselling service continues to operate during #lockdown as a telephone-based service and referrals are still being accepted. You can find out more about the service and our plans to resume a face to face as soon as we can at http://www.teentalk.org.uk.
All of the TeenTalk services are provided free at the point of access to young people and rely entirely on donations and grants. If you would like help secure this service for the future you can make a donation at http://www.teentalk.org.uk/donate.