History

What is the background story to Winchester Youth Counselling? Back in 2001 a counsellor from Hampshire Youth Service and a Community Mental Health Nurse were frustrated by the limitations of the short term therapy they were able to offer their young clients. 6 weeks help is great for many, but some young people’s problems are complex and profound, and having to abandon such troubled youngsters was a matter of deep concern to Jill Guppy and Stuart Gemmell.

The two decided to launch a charity for local youngsters in need of long term therapy. They met with other professionals and after much discussion decided to set up Winchester Youth Counselling. In order to raise the £1000 needed to register as a charity Stuart gamely jumped out of an aeroplane at 10,000 feet. Meanwhile Jill applied for a lottery grant and WYC was born. In the first year 70 young people 11-25 sought help from the charity.

Where are we now? A year later Hampshire Youth Service stopped providing short term counselling altogether which means that WYC is the sole provider of free counselling for young people in the area.
Since 2003 over 200 parents and 1000 young people have approached WYC for help, and around 700 young people have benefitted from our counsellors’ care and skills.

We currently still have Jill at the helm with two other paid counsellors, some office support and 2 volunteer trainee counsellors. Both the staff and Trustees do everything we can to keep costs down but the need for our services is growing and our current waiting list can mean a six week wait for an appointment. For a distressed, traumatised and perhaps suicidal young person this is not acceptable.

So what do we need? Our current outgoings are £60,000. Our fund raising team are working hard to meet the need, both from grants and activities, and are brimming over with ideas to generate the much needed cash. We know that there are many of you in the area who can empathise with the difficulties that face too many of the young people in our community and would love it if you would join our growing band of ‘WYC Supporters’. To enable us to see young people when they realise they need the help, we need enough funds to supply two more counsellors which would cost us £16000 a year.

What does it mean to be a Friend of WYC? The wider our network of support, the more people we can reach to help support our activities and events and the more young people we can get back to functioning happily in their lives and in our community. You will receive a bi-annual newsletter with news of WYC progress and fund raising or educational activities and events. You also may win cash prizes! If you would like to become a WYC Supporter please click here to find out more about ‘Friends of WYC’

 Winchester Youth Counselling Tel: 01962 820444 Reg Charity No: 1093429