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Young people

Being a young person can be tough, especially if you are struggling with personal or emotional difficulties.

Want to talk?

If you live in Barnet, Camden or Hammersmith and Fulham you can speak with us for free with four confidential sessions.

Young people come to us with all sorts of difficulties, so the first thing to do is understand what is troubling you. After the first few meetings, we will think with you about how best we can help.

Find out more and how to get in touch

Alternatively, or if you live elsewhere, you can speak to your friends, family, GP or school, college or university professional.

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We see a whole range of people here. We see people who are having problems with their relationships, with friends and family, with school or working life, with depression, anxiety, with self-harm or suicidal thoughts, with problems related to self-esteem, eating difficulties, and with experiences of abuse and trauma, including violence, family break-up, bereavement.

Your first visit

We accept self-referrals as well as referrals from GPs and other professionals such as social workers, psychiatrists and teachers. 

If you don’t have a Camden GP, your local borough might need to agree for you to be seen here. You are welcome to contact us directly to make sure that we are the best service to approach, before you go ahead and ask your doctor for a referral here.

Before you come to us

You might be anxious about coming to see us, especially if you have not been to speak to a professional about your difficulties before. That’s okay.

We want to help you and we will do our best to help you feel at ease.

If you are feeling nervous, or anxious, or angry, or confused about coming to see us, it helps if you tell your therapist how you are feeling, even if it is something negative.

I’m told I need an appointment with you. What happens next?

We will contact you, either by phone (text or call) or in writing, to arrange your first appointment.

If you are over 16 and haven’t self‐referred we will make contact before your appointment so that you are involved right from the start. If you have any worries about your appointment, we will be  happy to talk with you on the phone about them, although when you first come to see a therapist, this can be a good time to discuss these too.

You will usually be given a choice of times and dates for your appointments; if you can’t make the appointment for any reason please contact us so that we can re‐arrange it. We will have given you a number you can contact.

Will I be meeting just one therapist?

Usually, yes. But sometimes when we see young people we ask their family’s to come along are going to be seen as a family, you may see more than one therapist.

If you don’t want your family to be involved please talk about this with your therapist.

What will happen at the appointment?

We will ask you to come to the first appointment about 10‐15 minutes early so that you can fill in some forms that we will need for our information. If you find them at all difficult, we can help.

The therapist seeing you will usually arrange four-five appointments with you to allow them enough time to get to know you and your difficulties and to be able to discuss with you what help they think will be best. If you are offered therapy with us, this may be with the same therapist, or may be with someone else. This will be discussed with you early on. We find that people get the most out of their assessment (and therapy) if you say whatever is on your mind.

This is a confidential service and the therapist is here to help you.

Can I have an interpreter?

Yes. Our interpreters are specially trained to work with people in therapy and you can feel comfortable speaking freely in front of them. They will also respect your privacy and will not share anything you say in your meetings with anyone outside of the meeting.

Usually when you are referred to us, your referrer will let us know if you or any of your family needs an interpreter. However, if you are not sure if one has been organised, or you have any questions, please contact the administrator on the number you will be given as a contact.

Your emotional wellbeing

Being a young person can be tough, especially if you are struggling with personal or emotional difficulties.

Friends or family aren’t necessarily available or the people you want to talk to at such times. It can sometimes be difficult to talk about things, but talking does help.

We have a lot of experience in working with young people and we can help you to figure out which of our therapy options is most likely to help you.

We might see you at one of our young people’s services, but if we think another service could help you more we can help you get in touch with them.

One of our services is to work with young people that self harm. Below, Alex Duckwork explains how we can help you.

What we do

We see young people who are going through problems which they might be struggling to manage. Sometimes these problems can have a negative impact on you and your life.

When we first meet you, we will spend time getting to know you and hearing about the difficulties you are facing.

This may mean being seen for a few sessions only, or a longer time; sometimes we will recommend another service that we feel is better suited to helping you and we will discuss this with you.

Are there alternatives?

There is often a range of different approaches to a problem or difficulty.

You may have talked to your doctor (GP), your family or friends about what would be helpful. 

Your therapist will also have ideas and will discuss with you what approaches might be most successful and appropriate for the particular difficulties you’re experiencing.

Following discussion with you, we will agree together the best way forward.

Our services