Teen Counselling & Coaching

We Offer Both Coaching and Counselling For Adolescents and Young Adults

Being a teenager is a busy, exciting and often stressful time, for teenagers and their families. There is a lot of neurobiological change happening in their brains and their bodies alongside the pressure of navigating school, exams and relationships.

Given all the changes that they are experiencing it is no wonder that many adolescents may struggle with anxiety and low mood at this stage in their lives.

Our Approach

We can help teenagers recognise and articulate their emotions and communicate more effectively with the adults in their lives.  We strive to validate their feelings through coaching or counselling and help them develop healthy and positive ways of channeling their emotions. This leads towards a better understanding of themselves, their relationships and their established patterns of behaviour.

How We Work

If you are a self-referring young adult, please refer to our adult counselling and coaching services. 

We prefer to work with both parents/carers and the young person but this will depend on the client and the issues they bring. In some cases it may be appropriate to work only with the young person, but in other cases we find involving the parents/carers in the therapy process to be most beneficial. We will discuss which approach is most suitable for the young person in the initial meeting.  

Step 1 – Initial Enquiry

Parent/young person contacts TeenMatters via the enquiry form.

Step 2 – Information Sharing

There is an email information sharing exchange between therapist and parent/client to assess suitability for step 3. 

Step 3 – Parent Consultation (face-to-face or online via Zoom)

If the parent is seeking help for their young person we find it is most beneficial to have a session with the parent first.  This is to explore the issues the young person is facing from the parent’s perspective, before we meet the young person for an assessment session.

This consultation session costs £100 and lasts 50 minutes covering the issues the young person is struggling with, family history, TeenMatters approach and the parental role in the therapy process. Therapist and parent agree whether parenting support, therapy for the young person or a combination of both is the best way forward.

*If a young person age 18+ seeks help directly this step may be omitted. 

Step 4 – Young Person Assessment Session (face-to-face or online via Zoom)

The assessment session with the young person costs £100 and lasts 50 minutes.  This session will explore the young person’s issues in more depth and their psychological readiness for therapy, as well as chemistry with the therapist.  Therapist, parent and young person agree if they are ready for step 5.

Step 5 – Therapist and Client Contract for an initial half-term block of sessions

We offer the young person a weekly therapy slot on a half termly basis.  These sessions cost £80 and are payable in advance of the first session, usually in half term blocks.  This secures the slot in the therapist and young person’s diary for the half term and gives clarity and commitment to the work on both sides.  Parent coaching may also be part of this process. 

Step 6 – Review Half Termly (and agree ending or recontract)

This is with parent and young person (separately or together), in week 4 of therapy; we agree to recontract for more sessions or end the therapy at the end of the half term.  Evaluation form is sent out to parent and young person at the end of therapy.

We believe that the relationship with a parent or trusted adult is a key protective factor for the mental health and well-being of a young person. This is especially true in the earlier stages of adolescence. It is for this reason that with this age group, we prefer to work with both the parent and the young person, as we think it is likely to have the best short and long-term outcomes. Our aim is to develop enhanced levels of understanding, awareness and communication with both parties, thereby increasing levels of trust, mutual respect and harmony. 

Our aim is to only take as long as is needed. Using the above approach a typical arrangement with TeenMatters is likely to be a minimum of 6 sessions and tends not to exceed 6 months.  Our clients on average work with us for 2 school terms (12 sessions).

We prefer to contract in half termly blocks which helps build strong commitment to the work.

Our approach is based on the work of Guy Diamond and his well validated framework for working with adolescents – Attachment- Based Family Therapy for Depressed Adolescents ( ABFT).   

 We Can Help With These

Common Teenage Problems