Adolescence is a developmental stage where an individual transitions from being part of a family unit to joining a peer group or becoming an independent adult. This period involves a complex, multi-dimensional transformation from childhood to adulthood. Adolescents face numerous challenges as they navigate physiological, biological, psychological, and social changes.

Counselling young people is not complicated or difficult but the principles and practices differ notably from those used with children or adults. To effectively support young people, grasping their life stage, developmental processes, and unique challenges is essential. With this understanding, we can adopt a counselling approach tailored to their developmental needs and typical communication styles. I have also supported young people experiencing issues such as self-esteem, school pressures, family relationship issues, bullying, non-suicidal self-harm, neurodiversity, identity and others.

When young people move smoothly along their developmental path from childhood to adulthood, they generally feel good and do not require counselling. However, when issues arise, they can disrupt this natural development process. Despite this, young people often manage to overcome these challenges by relying on their strategies and resources, with support from peers, parents, or other significant individuals. In some cases, problems may be more serious, severe, cumulative, or very private, making it difficult for them to resolve these issues without counselling support.

Therapies that I utilise with young people are drawn from the proactive counselling approach, selecting primary counselling functions and micro-skills and strategies including symbolic, creative, behavioural and cognitive, psycho-educational and mindfulness.

In addition the practical alternatives to self-harm the APEX model by Diane Clare.

Counselling children requires different approaches compared to adults. While adults are typically invited to talk openly, this method often doesn't work with children, who may only respond to direct questions. To effectively engage children in discussing difficult topics, counsellors need to use additional strategies alongside verbal counselling. Incorporating media or other tools can help create a therapeutic environment that encourages children to participate in counselling. Counselling children also requires the counsellor to be clear about goals and ideas about how they will be achieved. Who should be setting the goals is a complex question and in my work with children I am guided by the following:

Level 1 goals – fundamental goals:

• To enable the child to deal with painful emotional issues.
• To enable the child to achieve some level of congruence with regard to thoughts, emotions and behaviours.
• To enable the child to feel good about themselves.
• To enable the child to accept their limitations and strengths and to feel okay about them.
• To enable the child to change behaviours that have negative consequences.
• To enable the child to function comfortably and adaptively within the external environment (example at home and school).
• To maximise the opportunity for the child to pursue developmental milestones.
• To support the child in developing resilience and promoting general wellbeing.

Level 2 goals – the parent’s goals

Level 3 goals – goals formulated by the counsellor

Level 4 goals – the child’s goals.

(Geldard, D., Geldard, K., & Yin Foo, R. (1997). Counselling Children. A practical introduction (5th ed.). Sage.