Counselling

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. Check out Sam's staff profile here.

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.

Our service is free for people aged between 10 and 24 thanks to funding from the District Health Board and Ministry of Social Development. This means we sometimes have a waiting list.

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

Our counselling, social work and youth work services have the following service exclusions: sexual abuse, intellectual disability, learning difficulties and severe mental health. 

Have a question? Ask away!