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Kooth.com - Online Therapy Service for Young People Launches in Warrington
MANCHESTER, England, September 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Warrington Borough Council has become the latest local authority to sign up to Kooth.com, the online advice, counselling and rapid referral service for young people. Warrington joins six other authorities in the North West in making the multiple award-winning service available to its youngsters. The Kooth service helps 11-25 year olds 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 content to make sure Kooth.com remains a safe site for young people to use. Elaine Bousfield, Service Director of Kooth.com: "We're delighted to be able to offer Kooth as a proven service to Warrington because we know from our own experience that young people find life tough at times and when they do, they often find it easier to tell a computer about a problem than talking to someone they know face-to-face about it. And if a young person ever needs to meet up with a counsellor offline, then we can offer that too." About Kooth.com Kooth was funded by the then Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Communities and Local Government) as an 'Invest To Save' initiative. Kooth is a multiple award-winning Early Intervention and Rapid Referral service for vulnerable young people. It consists of an online counselling website at Kooth.com which is linked into an Outreach Team. It is a universally accessible, joined up service that offers sustained, multi-disciplinary support. The service has been live in Stockport since March 2004 and also operates in Cheshire, Halton, Wirral, St Helens and, from later in September 2007, in Wigan. The official launch event for Kooth in Warrington is scheduled for 10 October 2007. A new-look, enhanced version of the Kooth.com site went live on 13 August 2007. 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 and is operated in Stockport by Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council and Xenzone Ltd. Contact: Kooth Service Director Elaine Bousfield T: +44-(0)845-330-7090
