Young Concern Trust
Who we are…
YCT is a counselling and therapeutic support charity. We specialise in supporting children and young people aged 5 – 25 years, their families and the professionals who work with them.
YCT started out in 1988 serving the immediate local community around Harlow, Essex, however we have grown considerably, working from community venues and schools, academies, colleges, alternative education provisions and specialist schools across Essex, Hertfordshire and Greater London.
The overall aim of YCT is to support children, young people and their families through challenging times so that they can feel hopeful about their futures.
YCT is able to offer support for an endless range of often very complex issues, and does this through a variety of services. These include one to one counselling, group work, drama and art therapy, play therapy and therapeutic play, the Forest School programme, group sessions and programmes, workshops, training and assemblies.
YCT also provides parent-child therapeutic work, and also offers counselling, supervision, consultancy, training, stress and relaxation technique sessions to professionals.
YCT regularly works in partnership with a range of other agencies to develop new services, such as the KYSS (Keep YourSelf Safe) project, Free2Bme, a drama-based diversity outreach project with an LGBT focus, Desire2Aspire focusing on young people’s aspirations and future achievements, and many more.
YCT's services are accredited by British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), meaning we work to strict quality and ethical frameworks. All our therapists are highly experienced and qualified.
Therapeutic Counselling at YCT
Counselling is an opportunity to talk to someone in confidence about anything that could be worrying you. This could be about a whole range of issues and at YCT we don’t think there is an issue to big or too small.
Check out our film below called ‘What is Counselling?’
Our trained and experienced counsellors are friendly and welcoming and won’t make judgements about you or your problems.
Counselling takes place through an appointment of around 50 minutes with the same counsellor every week, who will listen to you and help you explore how you are feeling. You decide if you would like counselling and how long you would like counselling for. This can be up to 8-12 weeks for young people aged 11-25 and 20 weeks for children 10 and under.
We offer counselling in schools and other education settings. In primary schools, this is usually play therapy or ‘thera-play’. In secondary schools, we mainly deliver ‘talking therapies’, with a YCT therapist listening to you and helping you to find your own answers to problems.
We provide talking therapy counselling from a number of community venues too in West Essex and North and East Hertfordshire. We work with 5 – 25 years in Harlow , and 11 – 19 years old in locations across East and North Hertfordshire.
Registered Number 298984