4 June 2021

Kooth, the online mental health platform for children and young people between 11 and 25 years, is launching a new mental health service to cover all boroughs in North West London.

Kooth historically operated across six of the boroughs in North West London, however from Tuesday 1 June the new Kooth North West London service will ensure a single, consistent service offer for all boroughs in North West London. 

Covid-19 has had a profound effect on many young people, increasing worry, anxiety, depression and even self-harming. This is echoed at Kooth, with platform usage increasing by 42% amongst children and young people. For our under-18 population, Kooth has seen a 39% increase in those presenting with suicidal thoughts and a 27% increase in those presenting with self-harm.

Children and young people need help with their mental health and wellbeing, and in partnership with the NHS, Kooth is another way young people in North West London can access timely advice and high-quality support.

Kooth offers safe and secure support from an online community of peers and a team of experienced, accredited counsellors. It provides mental health and wellbeing support to children and young people at the earliest opportunity before the problems escalate.

Kooth also provides an anonymous, self-referral digital service that enables children and young people to ‘drop in’ and find fast, easy and free support at a time suited to them. There are no waiting times, no referrals, no thresholds to meet and complete anonymity. This digital setting also helps to reduce the stigma associated with accessing mental health services.

In providing direct counselling support Kooth is a front door - increasing early intervention and prevention, assisting the recovery of children and young people with mental health concerns and helping reduce referrals to Specialist Children’s and Adolescent Mental Health services (CAMHS). Kooth works closely with existing mental health services and will complement the service offer across North West London, signposting to children’s services such as GPs and CAMHS when needed.

Across the UK, Kooth has:

● Provided vital peer-to-peer support for users via pre-moderated discussion forums; 24/7 access to - and the ability to contribute to - curated self-help content, including magazines with wellbeing articles, personal experiences and tips from other users and the Kooth team;

● Had 3,500 children and young people logon to Kooth each day;

● Supported young people through text-based sessions with 3 million minutes of chat sessions taking place in 2020 and;

● Had 94% of children and young people recommending Kooth to their friends.

Find Kooth at www.kooth.com or type Kooth into Google.