Resources: Quick guide to ... Counselling

1. The noble profession of youth counselling has two problems. One is that it gets marginalised. There are two fleeting references to it in Youth Matters, the youth green paper. The second is that a fair few people don't know what it is, but think they do. People with the least skills may tread into deep waters because they don't have a notion of what they should be doing. There's a huge need for definitions and boundaries, says Barbara Rayment, director of the youth counselling organisation Youth Access.

2. So what are the definitions? The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy says youth counsellors work with a young person "to investigate the how, why and where of their unhappiness and help them to address the situation themselves by raising their self-esteem and understanding of both themselves and others". Counselling is a very specific professional skill. It is non-judgmental and confidential. It has to be freely entered into by a young person. All that means that you can't really "give" someone counselling. They join in themselves.