The Kernos Centre has been successful in obtaining a grant from The Local Network Fund . This funding has allowed the Kernos Centre to open up the service by starting an adolescent project giving counselling sessions to young people in our area free of charge and without having to put them on to a long waiting list. This is very important for young people as it takes courage to seek help and present themselves for counselling.
If you are a young person struggling to deal with emotional issues that effect your every day life, having the opportunity to discuss and work through these problems with a counsellor may help you gain insight and solve current problems, or heal from past wounds. Our aim is to support young people in regaining self-esteem, not to judge their behaviours and attitudes. Individual counselling offers a young person the opportunity to discuss problems 1 to 1 with a counsellor, and to get information and support. Some young people have issues that just need a little assistance to get back on track, whereas others have more serious issues which can have a disruptive impact on their well-being and ability to cope.
Problems such as low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, family break-up, bereavement, bullying, school issues, abuse of any kind, eating disorders and substance abuse, are some of the difficulties that young people come to the Kernos centre to be helped to work through and resolve. No problem is too small or too big.
You can ring us to make an appointment and there is no obligation to continue to come if you decide that counselling is not helping.
The following information has been collated from information on-line. The Kernos Centre has leaflets for young people giving more information on various subjects, which are available free. Please telephone and arrange a convenient time to come in for advice, counselling or leaflets.
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Do children and young people get depressed too?
Young people are more dependent or vulnerable, less well defended and more sensitive to what is happening to them and around them. They care deeply, for example, about:
- losing their parents - whether because of divorce or separation, or through death
- not being loved or listened to, feeling left out
- losing their pets or favourite toys or possessions
- changing school, moving home, losing friends
- their parents arguing or becoming depressed
- their bodies, getting ill, feeling abnormal
- sex
- exams, not doing well
- being abused physically, sexually, emotionally
Feeling depressed is part of living, of dealing with the uncertainties of life. For children and young people, it is part of finding out how to cope with the ups and downs of growing up. But...if these feelings go on for months, to the point where they interfere a great deal with day-to-day living and take away from vitality and pleasure in life, then they become more of a problem. Young people need to be taken seriously. At the extreme, some may actually have a clinical depression. This is a disturbed state of mind that makes everyday living very difficult, and definitely needs specialist help. About 2 in every 100 children aged 12 have depression in this way. More teenagers suffer depression - about 4 or 5 in every 100. www.youngminds.org.uk
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Domestic Abuse information
Abuse is when one person hurts or bullies another person. Domestic violence is when this abuse happens between two people in a family or between two people who are dating, living together, married or have children together (for example: between parents, boyfriend and girlfriend or between lesbian or gay couples). Domestic violence doesn't always have to be physical; Usually domestic violence is a pattern of abusive behaviour that includes emotional, physical, sexual and financial abuse
Usually men are the abusers and women are the victims (the ones getting hurt), but domestic violence can happen to men as well. Sometimes another member of your family might be the abuser; it's possible that your mum, your brother or sister, your grandparent or your foster parent might be hurting someone in your family. Watching one parent hit or frighten the other can make you feel scared.
Maybe you're not quite sure about what's happening in your home, but you know things aren't always happy. It can be tough to figure out whether things in your family are okay or not okay. Every family is different. It's normal for parents to argue sometimes when they don't agree on something. Every family has stresses and disagreements, but maybe there's a lot of fighting and shouting in your home that's making you upset.
Home is where you should feel supported and protected. No one should be hurting another and no one should be hurting you. If this is not the case and you no longer feel safe at home, if you're afraid of one parent getting hurt or you're even scared of getting hurt yourself then things are probably not quite right.
In a relationship, there are ups and downs – sometimes people say and do things to each other that are not nice. But there's a difference between normal arguing, and abusive fighting behaviour in the home, which is called domestic violence.
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Domestic violence can happen to anyone - no matter what race, ethnicity or religion you are, or how much money you have. Domestic violence can happen to adults or it can happen to teenagers in a dating relationship. It can happen to disabled adults or young people. It happens to people all over the world.
The important thing to remember is that you're not alone – it happens to a lot of other children as well. You're not blame for what's going on. You're an important person, you have the right to be safe and if things are not okay then there's help you can get to change them.
Click on to our Domestic Abuse page for more information ... Or visit www.thehideout.org.uk
Or telephone Childline 0800 1111 NSPCC ... 0808 800 5000
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Eating Disorders
Everybody needs to eat to live - food is a very important part of people's lives. People like different foods and need different amounts of food. Just as people have different hair colour, they have different bodies, heights, bone structures and builds. Body fat is stored in different places in our bodies, due to our genes. It is most important to have a healthy body weight (and a certain amount of body fat) to keep our bodies working. Most people are unhappy with their bodies some of the time - thinking they are too fat, too thin, or just the wrong shape. This can be especially true for teenagers whose bodies are changing a lot.
There are other young people, however, whose eating problems become much more serious and extreme. Their not eating or over-eating builds up and persists over many months so that their physical health, and in some cases even their lives, can be put at high risk. Their everyday life at home and in school may well be seriously disrupted. These young people are not at all well, either physically or emotionally. It is when eating problems like this reach such a disturbing level that specialists use the term eating disorders - the most severe disorders being called anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.
Eating problems and disorders are more common in girls than boys, but people from all backgrounds and of all ages can suffer too. Eating problems and disorders are not just about food, they are about feelings.
For more information www.youngminds.org.uk
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Bullying
Bullying is hurtful. It can happen in many different ways and is intended to intimidate or persecute the other person. Bullying can include many different types of behaviour , from name-calling, exclusion and physical violence. Bullying can make you feel, upset, sad and alone. When you feel like this you might not want to do your school work or even go to school .
Don't bottle it up. It's important to tell somebody you trust like your parents, teachers or another adult to make the bullying stop. The school can do a lot to stop bullying happening and should have rules to deal with it. If you are worried about a child or a young person being bullied, YoungMinds Parents' Information Service offers a free, confidential telephone services.
This section of YoungMinds website contains info for parents and young people on dealing with bullying, and further sources of help, including web links, national organisations and further reading and resources. www.youngminds.org.uk
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Self-Harming
Self-harming is a way of dealing with very difficult feelings that build up inside. People deal with these feelings in various ways. Here are some examples:
- Cutting or burning themselves, bruising themselves, taking an overdose of tablets, pulling hair, or picking skin.
- Some people think that the seriousness of the problem can be measured by how bad the injury is. This is not the case - a person who hurts themselves a bit can be feeling just as bad as someone who hurts themselves a lot.
- Self-injury can affect anyone. It is a lot more common than people think. Many people hurt themselves secretly for a long time before finding the courage to tell someone.
- Some young people self-harm on a regular basis while others do it just once or a few times. For some people it is part of coping with a specific problem and they stop once the problem is resolved. Other people self-harm for years whenever certain kinds of pressures or feelings arise.
Everyone has problems in their life and often people look for help. But sometimes it's hard to cope or even to put feelings into words. If they get bottled up inside, the pressure goes up and up until they feel like they might explode. This is the point where some people injure themselves.