January 2020

Collaborating with counselling organisations

My research involves two distinct, but related studies - the collection of data from non-help-seeking adolescents in schools and the analysis of pre-existing outcome data from help-seeking adolescents receiving psychotherapeutic and counselling services. As you can probably imagine, these two studies involve very different types of focus, energy and timescales, but as I have largely spoken about the school-data study so far, I wanted to draw attention to the second study with counselling organisations. The voluntary and community sector plays an incredibly important role in meeting key challenges in mental health services for young people and often plugs crucial gaps in service provision. As the Guardian pointed out in 2015 'The role of the voluntary and community organisations in supporting mental health conditions is well established. These organisations are rooted in their communities, are trusted by the people they work with, have a long history of social action and user-led interventions, sit outside of clinical settings, and are able to offer significant and effective levels of support'. Working with such organisations in a research capacity, it has been incredibly motivating to see the dedication of these groups to supporting young people and also to consistently improving the services they deliver. Working with counselling outcomes is always difficult and can rouse a lot of fears and anxieties for therapists, counsellors and management. However, I have found the three counselling organisations I have collaborated with to be devoted to furthering their services using evidence and research, and unafraid of taking a critical look at the outcome data. I really hope the work we are doing together will be useful for the service that they provide and the young people they support.