Profile and Outcomes of Youth Counselling in the VCS Sector: Practice Research Network Results

1. Counselling for young people and young adults in the voluntary and community sector: outcomes and demographics from a practice research network Barbara Rayment Youth Access

2. Aim of study To produce and disseminate reliable evidence on the profile of service users and the outcomes of counselling in the community-based settings of VCS Youth Information, Advice and Counselling Services(YIACS)

3. Who’s involved? • Youth Access • Prof. Mick Cooper • BACP: Dr Jo Pybis and Andy Hill • Dr Cathy Street • 8 local Youth Information, Advice and Counseling Services: Alone in London, Islington, Bradford Counselling Services, Bradford, Off Centre, Hackney, Off the Record, Bristol, Off the Record, Croydon, YPAS, Liverpool, Stepforward, Tower Hamlets

4. What are YIACS An integrated health and wellbeing model offering a universal access point to targeted and specialist help. Services offer: • A range of interventions ‘under one roof’ • Young person-centred • Open to a wide age range e.g. 13 to 25 • Holistic approach, meeting multiple and complex needs • Multi-disciplinary teams, providing wrap-around support • Flexible access routes, including through open door ‘drop-in’ sessions • Free, independent and confidential

5. Study design • 8 local YIACS across the country; operating under an agreed protocol • Implementing measures recognised by Children and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (CYP IAPT) with 11-25 year olds • Data collection on range and severity of issues presented (Current View) • Session by session outcomes monitoring:YP-CORE (11-16 YO) & CORE-10 (17-25 YO) • Data on young people’s satisfaction with the services: (CHI ESQ with some additional questions)

6. Participants (to date) • 230 participants (200 CHI-ESQ) • Data from 45 counsellors • 162 female (70.4%), 65 male (28.3%), 3 not stated (1.3%) • Age: 11-26 (median 17) • Ethnicity: 35 Black/Black British (15.2%), 121 White British (52.6%), 22 Asian/Asian British (9.6%), 19 Mixed (8.3%), 12 White Other (5.2%)

7. Presenting Issues (to date) • Family difficulties (most common): 45.9% moderate or severe • Depression/low mood: 38.1% moderate or severe • General anxiety : 37.4% moderate or severe • Disturbed by traumatic event: 28.3% moderate or severe • Anxiety in social situations: 23.6% moderate or severe • Self-harm: 15.3% moderate or severe • Experiences of abuse or neglect: 28.2% moderate or severe

8. Number of sessions (to date)

9. Number of sessions • Mean number of sessions = 5.4 • Median number of sessions = 4 • % of clients having just one session = 32.2 • Very similar to school based counselling

10. Results

11. Outcomes • First CORE: 20.7 (SD = 6.8) • Last CORE: 15.3 (SD = 7.8) • Significant improvements (p<.001) • Effect size: 0.79 (large) • In a number of cases, yps may still be midway through therapy rather than completed and already results are looking good!)

13. Comparative distress Baseline scores on YP-CORE (21.0) for clients in VCS appear higher than those in school-based counselling (e.g. Welsh counselling strategy = 18.6)

14. YP Service Satisfaction • Very high levels of satisfaction on CHI-ESQ (range 0-36) • Mean = 34.7 (SD = 1.8) • Median = 35 • Mode = 36 (44% of all scores)

15. CHI ESQ Satisfaction Score

16. Rating the help ‘Overall, the help I received here was good’ – 98. 5% indicated ‘Certainly True’

17. Usefulness of outcome measures ‘I found it helpful to complete an outcome questionnaire at the start of each session’ • 52.9% indicated ‘Certainly True’ • 29.4% indicated ‘Partly True’ • 17.6% indicated ‘Not true’

18. Next steps • Study will continue for at least a year • Publication of paper • Use findings to inform/influence policy and service development at DH and NHSE • Local dissemination to inform service planning and commissioning