Birmingham City Council has signed up to provide the Kooth online mental health and wellbeing service to young people in the city.
It is freely available and gives them access to text chats with counsellors accredited by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy from midday to 10pm at weekends and from 6-10pm at weekends.
It is accessible to 11-15 year-olds with no referrals and encourages peer-to-peer support through related moderated discussion forums and self-help through reading material and submitting content.
The council related the move to the mental health pressures created by the coronavirus pandemic.
Its cabinet member for children’s wellbeing, Councillor Kate Booth, said: “The Kooth service for young people is ideal when we need to limit face-to-face contact, with online guidance, chat and counselling alongside the mental health services delivered by Forward Thinking Birmingham.”
She added that it is part of a package of support the council is setting up in each neighbourhood.
The Kooth service is provided by XenZone, a specialist in online mental health services.
Birmingham is the second large city to announced a digital mental health service for young people this month. Greater Manchester Combined Authority said last week it was preparing to provide a collection of online and text based services.
Image from Alachua County, CC BY 2.0
