Counselling Services

Programme Areas

Mental health

Programme Type

Community based support - mental health

Regions

MidCentral

Age Groups

Youth / Rangatahi

Referral Types

Self referral

Referral Process

To make an appointment just give our office a ring on 06 355 5909.

Our service is free for people aged between 10 and 24 and this means we sometimes have a waiting list.

Our counselling services have the following service exclusions: sexual abuse, intellectual disability, learning difficulties and severe mental health and is for young people who live in Palmerston North.

If you would like to make a formal referral to YOSS, please complete the form below and email to info@yoss.org.nz.

The advantage of a formal referral is that we are able to track them and follow-up young people who may not be able to self present. Please also let us know if you're able to do a 'warm handover', which means that you'll bring the young person (and their family or support person), with them to YOSS for an initial meet and greet session (kanohi ki te kanohi). Please also let us know if the young person is aware that this could occur.

• Referral form (DOC, 186 KB)

Description

YOSS counselling is youth-friendly, non-judgemental, confidential and free!

Sam's our super friendly youth counsellor. She works at YOSS Monday to Thursday and can help you out with expressing your feelings, coping with stress, trying different things and generally feeling ok about being you.

Our counselling service is completely voluntary, which means you come along because you want to.

The first counselling session is all about checking one another out. You get to meet Sam and decide whether you like her, and Sam gets to have a bit of a chat with you about what's going on in your life. You can even bring your family and friends along so they can get to know Sam too.

After this first session we'll be able to talk about if and how we can help, or if there is someone else who may be able to help and support you more. You get to tell us whether you want to come back. It's completely up to you!

It'll take around 50 minutes each time you come and see us, and anything you share with us will be kept confidential. However, if you tell us anything that worries us (like about hurting yourself, hurting someone else or if you are being hurt), we will talk about this together and develop a plan if we need to tell anybody else.