Volunteering to help young people with mental health issues provides vital support

Consider counselling after retirement from other areas, says Jonathan Wood

‘I liked working with children. After a long career as a teacher, I retired. Recognising that children’s emotional health had always been my prime concern, I trained as a counsellor and offered my time as a volunteer.”

Place2be has always worked with volunteers in schools. These people are either students on placement or fully qualified in recognised counselling and psychotherapy trainings. Why so many of them – up to a hundred placements in Scotland a year; over 1,000 Uk-wide – offer a day a week of their time for a year and often go on to commit to further years, tells us something important about the current state of children’s mental health provision.

The person quoted at the start of the also does a round-trip of several hours to the school where she volunteers. There is no provision for children’s counselling in her local area. She does not want the responsibility of a job, having recently retired, but the wealth of experience she brings would be a lost resource without an appropriate volunteering opportunity for her.

“I wanted to work therapeutically with children and young people but could not find the right training for me.”

In Scotland there are a number of counselling, psychotherapy and arts psychotherapy courses which focus on work with adults but very few – I only know of one – dedicated to work with children.

We know there is a crisis in the provision of services for children fac- ing mental health issues. Offering volunteer opportunities as well as conversion courses as part of the placement offer for adult-trained therapists develops this workforce and helps us address the growing problem.

All of us miss a vital trick by not addressing the potential volunteer population out there. Of course the necessary checks and balances around safeguarding are even more important with any broad-reach volunteering programme.

But considering the recently retired who may have had a lifetime in teaching, youth work, social work or other people-focused professions, it would be a tragedy to lose the input from that mature resource.

And for students in psychotherapeutic disciplines, placement oppor- tunities, especially with children at this stage in their careers, can engender an interest and a passion in this work which lasts a lifetime.

One in ten children – and rising – face mental health issues in Scotland from an early age. The Scottish Government’s 2017-2027 Mental Health Strategy commits to rolling out mental health training for those whosupportchildrenandyoungpeople in an educational setting. SAMH is calling on the government to support counselling in all Scottish secondary schools.

Place2be says start earlier still. Workforce development within the primary sector, encouragements and training for volunteers, particularly the retired, experienced workforce, and placements for students on therapeutic trainings with chilpiece

dren would all be step in the right direction.

Louiza, who worked in a Glasgow school as a volunteer counsellor, shares why it was such a valuable experience.

“I think back to one of the first children I worked with, a boy who came for one-to-one counselling with me. There was a history of substance abuse in his family so he lived away with his grandmother and didn’t have contact with his parents. As a result he was angry, rebellious and ran away from home on a regular basis. For a long time he said very little in our sessions together in the Place2be room, just sloshed paints, threw toys and sprinkled glitter while I sat with him.

Over time, we built up trust and he began to talk to me about his parents and his self-esteem, making art especially for his mum. His teacher told me he was focusing a lot more in class, while being calmer at home, eagerly talking to his grandmother about Place2be and even tidying his room.

What Place2be does is not only lifechanging for children but the adults who support them. I never feel alone or unable to work out what to do. There’s always a person, resource or training opportunity to help me meet a challenge and develop my skills. Even though I’m leaving Scotland, I hope to volunteer again near my new home and I’ve even been encouraged to apply for a School Project Manager role.”

Place2be works with over 1,000 volunteer counsellors in primary and secondary schools across the UK and is looking for volunteers to join its teams in North Ayrshire, Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Find out more about how to apply by visiting www.place2be. org.uk/placements Jonathan Wood, National Manager for Scotland at Place2be.