Resources: Know how - Counselling children

1. Counselling is not the same as having a confidential chat, being a sympathetic listener or giving advice. Proper counselling is a more formal agreement, usually of a fixed length, to help someone come to positive decisions about a problem. It may use familiar techniques of active listening, reflecting back, and so on. But a proper counselling relationship is different from the "listening to children" recommended for all adults who work with children. A counsellor should be trained or accredited by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.

2. Somehow we don't like to think of children being prone to mental health problems such as depression or anxiety. But children live in the same world as adults. They can experience the same emotional crises such as bereavement, friendship break-ups, or other problems that seem overwhelming. They can also get frightened, are vulnerable to abuse, and may have no-one they feel they can talk to. Children may be less able than adults to put how they are feeling in perspective, or draw on past experience of when tough times got better. Some children have serious mental illnesses.