Let's Relate to young people

If you thought Relate were all about marriage counselling, today's findings about counselling and young people may surprise you.

In their latest survey, Relate counsellors reveals that the most common reason why young people need counselling is because of issues with anger, followed by self esteem and not getting on with parents.

The research also revealed that nearly three quarters of young people said they felt stressed at least sometimes, with nearly a third saying they felt stressed often or all the time.

Relate are the largest provider of counselling to young people in the UK.  They hope to understand the pressures and hopes of younger people and highlight the issues they bring up in the counselling room:  

The most common issues that young people come into Relate counselling with are:

Anger 58%, self esteem 44% and not getting on with parents 43%

The new issues that young people have been bringing up in the counselling room are:

Young people being depressed / suffering with mental health conditions 64% Increase in family break-up (41%) Parents having mental health conditions (23%) Pressures of social media (21%)

The most inspiring people in young people’s lives were their parents with 41% saying they felt inspired by them. Followed by 27% who said a friend and 26% who said a teacher. Yet one in ten teenagers said no one inspired them.

Girls are more likely to be stressed than boys 37% of girls said they often or all the time felts stressed compared to 24% of boys.

Please support Relate's Talk to Us campaign.  You can follow them on Twitter@relate_charity with the hashtag #talktous or visit their websitewww.relate.org.uk