Modern day life can be challenging whatever your age but for young people dealing with the after effects of the COVID lockdowns, disruption to schooling and further education, many are feeling stressed, anxious and totally overwhelmed. Sometimes dealing with those emotions can be difficult to talk through with parents or close family members and having a trained counsellor to listen and support you can help you start to turn your life around.

You may sometimes find it difficult to say exactly what is on your mind. Don’t worry. By talking with one of GOGS counsellors you can learn to cope with that difficulty whilst you start to make positive changes in your life. Tackling issues such as bereavement, anxiety, self-harm, abuse and suicidal ideation is often easier for young people when the person they are talking to is trained to understand their mental health issues and not personally involved. Sometimes our counsellors will refer you to another service, but this is only to ensure that you receive the specialist and advice and support that is the best fit for you.

COGS aims to secure the future of young people living in and around Faringdon, allowing for better job prospects, ultimately helping them give back to the wider community and society as a whole.

Unlike our local Mental Health Services which are desperately over-stretched with long waiting lists, COGS is able to respond quickly with current timescales of less than a two week turn around from initial contact to the first counselling session. COGS is operated under the Gillick Competency and Fraser Guidelines. Young people are asked to complete a pre-counselling questionnaire at the start of their ‘journey’ with a post-counselling questionnaire after the 10 week period. To see the results achieved after 10 weeks is incredibly rewarding, not only for the recipient but also for the team who run COGS.

Linked to COGS, and introduced for 2024, is a new mentoring service. Mentors are people who work with young people, coming from a range of professional backgrounds but all with an understanding of mental health issues children, young people and young adults face in today’s society. The mentoring service is for young people who have either gone through the 10 week counselling with COGS but perhaps need some further support post-counselling or those that are not yet ready to enter counselling/are unable to enter counselling but would benefit from an impartial person to talk too. This may only require one or two sessions or can run for months, but it can help young people cope knowing that there is someone they can continue to turn to who is not a family member or a teacher or work colleague. 

Young men in their late teens and early twenties are sadly at high risk of suicide and sadly, in the Faringdon area over recent years we have seen an increase in this being the case. So we have launched the ‘Man Down’ campaign to try and reach some of those young men before things get to that point. Help is always out there. Whether you talk to a friend or family member or a professional such as our COGS Counsellors or your GP it is the first step in getting help.

Mental Health Statistics show that over a third of men (35%) think they’ve had a diagnosable mental health condition at some point in their life.

Key findings:
* 77% of men polled have suffered with symptoms of common mental health conditions such as anxiety, stress or depression
* 40% of men have never spoken to anyone about their mental health
* 29% of those say they are “too embarrassed” to speak about it, while 20% say there is a “negative stigma” on the issue

The biggest cause of mental health issues in men’s lives are work (32%), their finances (31%) and their health (23%)
40% of men polled by Mental Health Group Priory said it would take thoughts of suicide or self-harm to compel them to get professional help.