One to one work

Lemon Jelly's one to one work places counselling skills alongside youth work to work with young people who are struggling for a variety of reasons. 

The combination of the two skill sets means that therapeutic youth work is uniquely useful and practical for young people, providing a space for them to talk and be present and gently process the issues they are facing.

Debs has over 25 years experience of one to one work with young people, and has a number of youth work and counselling qualifications. Over the years she has worked with a wide and varied range of issues including anxiety, depression, panic attacks, sexual assault, self-harm, eating disorders, OCD, divorce, suicidal thoughts and ideation, bereavement, anger management, school-refusal, childhood trauma, PTSD/CPTSD, behavioural issues, young people who are questioning their sexuality or gender, or who are working through being trans/non-binary or non-hetero.

In recent times, more and more Debs has worked with clients who carry neurodivergent diagnoses - ASC  autistic spectrum conditions including PDA and ODD) , ADHD, processing conditions, dyslexia/dispraxia/discalculia, etc, and who are bringing particular issues and or wanting to work to understand and integrate their condition into their growing identity.

She has also worked with individuals to provide pieces of work that blend dealing with mental health issues alongside PSHE (personal, social and health education) and SRE (sex and relationships education). This has been particularly useful for young people who have ASC and deaf young people (in partnership with an excellent BSL interpreter) as they are less able to access this kind of curriculum in school, have particular needs, and are often withdrawn by schools from PSHE/SRE.

Debs works mainly in a long-term integrative manner. A lot of mental health interventions currently offered to young people are short, problem focused sessions that create strategies for the young person to 'get over' the issue they are facing. Whilst this can form part of Debs' work, she is also interested in young people becoming able to work at a deeper level to begin to understand their whole story - to be able to set their current issues in the context of what's happened in the past and gain some clarity. Out of this understanding, young people are usually able with support, to grow their own ways forward, create their own strategies that work for them, and can then look to their future with hope and make good plans for it.

Obviously this kind of work can take longer than a couple of weeks and in order to enable this, Debs' fees are kept lower than the usual £50+ per session charged in North Devon. Young people who pay their own fees are offered an even lower rate.

Sessions are delivered in two ways, either through schools contracting Lemon Jelly's service in, or through parents and carers arranging for young people to see Debs privately at her office in Bideford.

Please get in contact if this could help your young person. The first session is an opportunity for the young person to check out Debs,  identify what they would like to work on, and quietly test the water of what can be a scary experience. Currently an initial appointment with Debs has a waiting time of  around 4 to 6 weeks.