The Here4You Story
The Here4You Story
The Here4You school-based counselling service was established following a successful Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) of school-based counselling led by Metanoia Institute, with the aim to evaluate the effectiveness of school-based counselling interventions in improving mental health outcomes for young people. (Ref 1) The study followed a randomized controlled design, which is considered the gold standard in research methodology for assessing the impact of interventions and was nested within schools that did not have an established counselling service. One of the headline outcomes of this study was that schools taking part in the study that had previously not had a counselling service to that point, wanted to fund one and wanted the Metanoia Institute study team to provide it, so ‘accidentally,’ the Here4You (H4Y) school-based counselling service came into being as, perhaps uniquely, an evidence-based school counselling service.
Here4You continues to assess the impact of its service to schools and young people, providing an end of term report on the impact to each school and aiming to contribute to rigorous evidence on the effectiveness and impact of school-based counselling interventions to inform policymakers, educators, and mental health professionals about the potential benefits and limitations of implementing such programmes in schools.
Mission and Aims The Here4You school-based counselling service was established in response to the growing need to address the mental health and emotional well-being of students in schools, with the aim of working in tandem with schools to make mental health support more accessible, more effective, and more integrated into the school environment, where students spend a significant portion of their time. The service's mission is to offer confidential and accessible mental health support to students within their school communities. Here4You collaborates with schools, professionals, and other stakeholders to develop comprehensive services that meet the unique needs of the students they serve. The Here4You service continues to involve ongoing evaluation and refinement, to ensure effectiveness and adaptability to changing mental health needs. We work closely with school staff to promote a holistic approach to supporting students' well-being and are part of the broader movement towards integrating mental health services within schools to better support students' emotional well-being.
The Here4You service consists only of fully qualified and registered counsellors or therapists who work directly within the school setting, providing individual therapy, staff support and group work as well as crisis intervention.