We invited Site Equip’s Charity Of The Year, YPI Counselling to sit down with us for an interview and tell us a little more about their charity and how they help the young people of Basingstoke and Deane!
Supporting hundreds of young people, parents, and professionals each year, YPI is the leading youth counselling charity in Basingstoke. We provide Mental Health and emotional support to young people aged 11 to 25 years old and parents of all ages through a range of interventions including 1-to-1 counselling sessions, group work, and psycho-educational activities. We pride ourselves on being a locally run charity with a strong community focus. Throughout our 20-year history, we have actively partnered with a variety of local community groups to continuously improve the services available to young people and parents; developing new services specifically aimed at areas of deprivation or need.
On average it costs £40 per hour of counselling which equates to about £240 per young person for a course of sessions. For each £240 raised we will be helping to support life changes for young people and those around them; by supporting the funding of counselling for mental health and emotional support. You can find YPI’s website here.
You can donate the cost of your pint here and help support Site Equip’s charity of the year!
We had the honour of interviewing Jayne from YPI Counselling!
Could you please explain what YPI Counselling does in a few sentences?
We are a mental health charity for people ages 11 – 25. We have counselling sessions which are one to one sessions that help people who have suffered abuse, depression, anxiety, self-harm, risk-taking behaviour and we help to fund the issues and equip that person with methods to overcome the issue. We also find what their triggers are. We also have a mentoring program that is only for young parents at the moment, but we really want to expand our mentoring service; just helps give young people one to one support again but also a positive role model to help keep them in education, find new social groups for them and reduce risk-taking behaviour.
Why are donations so important to the running of Site Equip’s Charity of the Year, YPI Counselling?
Basically, we don’t get any funds, we don’t get any funds from anybody. We do get a little bit of support from Basingstoke and Deane Council but it’s a very small amount compared to what we need to run the service. Donations, fundraising, grants are literally our bread and butter for our cause.
Why is YPI important for the young people of Basingstoke and Deane?
Because they have nowhere else to go, which is a very sad situation I think. It is ridiculous that one in four young people have mental health problems and it’s increasing. The pandemic has made it worse, it’s now two in four, that’s half of young people who have nowhere to turn. It’s vital that we try and support these people while their young before these issues are established.
What is the best way for people to support you?
There’s a number of ways for people to support us, it’s not all about money. We do love money but it’s also time. Fundraising, can you yourself do some fundraising? Can you do a sponsored walk, jump, comedy night; anything you can think of. With time, also are you an expert in social media, are you an expert in IT – is there anything you can help us with? That’s incredibly helpful support. Also sharing and spreading and liking our posts, helps them get to the right people if we have enough people looking at us. Any way possible, we accept any help.
What services do you offer to young adults?
So its counselling service – this is for anybody, we do not refuse anybody. Anybody can self refer, be referred through doctors surgeries, through schools, through CAHMS or through their parents. As long as you’re willing to undergo our services, we will offer you counselling. Hopefully, soon we can offer some mentoring services, but that’s all down to our funding at the moment.
Why is helping and supporting the mental health of young adults so important?
It’s vital. Probably the biggest one, you literally could save a life. A lot of these young adults are suicidal, they are heading that way and we want to reach them before that happens. It’s also social isolation, without the support they won’t mix or have anything to do with their communities. Risk-taking behaviour, so we want to stop the drugs, the alcohol, the self-harm; so we need to address the issue while they’re young. It helps the community too, if we can help get these young adults back in education, back into work; that also supports the community. Suicide is the third leading cause of death in young people aged 15-19. That’s atrocious, we shouldn’t be anywhere near that. Depression and anxiety are one of the leading causes of disability in adolescence. It’s crazy, we just need to support and help. These are our future generations, leaders of the world. We need to help them while they are young.
What fundraising events do you have coming up?
A tough one at the moment because of Covid, but we are working on hopefully a comedy night. We do hope to get out into the galas again when they reopen in the summer months. Nothing is being scheduled at the moment so it’s really tough. We are hoping to do a band night with Site Equip’s help as Beth in marketing has volunteered to play for that. We are trying to organise a Christmas carrol event, it sounds like a long time off, we also want some modern Christmas carrols in there too! It will also be the normal Christmas raffles and events.
How has the global pandemic affected YPI?
It was extremely hard at first because we were one to one/face to face, which instantly stopped so we had to switch everything. So we had to work out if we needed to stop our services, which was a no because they would be needed more than ever, so we moved everything online. We did zoom meetings and telephone support, so still one to one but just online as much as possible. The online support has actually had a really positive outcome, we are finding that it’s being embraced. It’s being found easier to zoom in rather than come down to the offices. So though we switched over to online sessions because of the pandemic, we are going to be continuing to use online with face to face for higher risk cases. Its changed our way of thinking.
Anything exciting coming up?
I am really keen to grow our social media using our tips of the day and we cannot wait to do some live events. The mentoring also, which I think is really exciting. There are so many school kids who don’t think they need it but they are borderline and just need someone to help.
You can donate to Site Equips charity of the year, YPI Counselling on our just giving link here. If you would like to find out more about how you can help Site Equip fundraise for this incredible charity, please drop us a message on our contact page here.
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