MANCHESTER, England, October 21 /PRNewswire/ --     Kooth, the pioneering advice and support service for 11-25 year olds,
received the Local Government IT Excellence Award for Service Transformation
at the Society of Information Technology Management (Socitm) Annual
Conference last week in Newport.

The Kooth service helps vulnerable young people deal with a wide range of
problems from alcohol and drug misuse through to bullying and depression. The
free, confidential and anonymous service is staffed by a team of specially
trained counsellors and advice workers, who also fully moderate the site
checking the suitability of all the user-created content to make sure
Kooth.com remains a safe site for young people to use.

The Local Government IT Excellence awards are the result of collaboration
between Intellect, Socitm and SOLACE. Now in their 13th year, they seek to
highlight and reward IT systems or processes within local government which
improve the efficiency and delivery of services within local communities.

Elaine Bousfield, Kooth Service Director, said: "We are extremely proud
of Kooth and how it has broken the stigma for the young people we have worked
with surrounding mental and emotional health. This award strengthens our
desire for Kooth.com to one day be a national service so that young people
from all over the UK can access advice and counselling from the medium they
are growing up with which is the Internet."

Councillor Mark Weldon, Executive Member for Children & Young People, at
Stockport Council, said: "Kooth.com continues to go from strength to
strength. This innovative public/private partnership rightly receives the
national accolades for the difference it makes to young people when they need
advice and support."

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About Kooth.com

Kooth.com solves a significant problem for vulnerable young people, local
authorities and Primary Care Trusts. The pioneering web-based counselling
service provides young people with a free, confidential, safe, always
accessible and, above all, anonymous and non-threatening way of asking for
help when they first need it. It enables local authorities to intervene early
with regard to difficult emotional and mental health problems being
encountered by at risk young people.

Kooth was originally funded by the then Office of the Deputy Prime
Minister (Communities and Local Government) as an 'Invest To Save'
initiative. The first local authority in the UK to offer the service to its
local population was Stockport Council in March 2004 and it now operates in
another eight areas, namely, Cheshire, St Helens, Wirral, Wigan, Warrington,
Knowsley, Warwickshire and, most recently, Blaenau Gwent.

The URL for the Kooth service is http://www.kooth.com and more
information about Kooth can be found at http://www.kooth.info. Kooth is a
public/private partnership between Xenzone Limited and Stockport Metropolitan
Borough Council.

Contact:
    Elaine Bousfield, Kooth Service Director
    T: +44(0)845-330-7090