In these few sentences can be found the story of much youth counselling - services bounced from one funder to the next and little awareness of the complex issues young people bring to them. Despite a growing body of evidence, including from the former Social Exclusion Unit, the success and value of youth counselling services in reaching out to and working with some of the most vulnerable continues to be poorly appreciated.
Over the past few decades, counselling services have been a well-defined part of youth service provision. This was most recently expressed in the shape of the youth service pledge in the 2002 government strategy document Resourcing Excellent Youth Services. While the pledge did not translate into consistent local delivery, it did offer an important benchmark. Yet after several decades of development, the place of counselling in the current policy context is vague.
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