Sarah Benham

I volunteer for 2 hours a week outside of work time most weeks with registered charity 'Eye to Eye Youth Counselling Service' as a Therapeutic Counsellor. Eye to Eye delivers counselling free of charge to around 500 young people aged 11 - 25 years in Rhondda Cynon Taff each year.

I have volunteered 150 plus hours to date not including the additional time for monthly supervision and ad hoc training events. The service provides a confidential and non-judgemental space for young people between the ages of 11-25 to talk about their problems. I have worked with young people that are struggling with anger management, domestic abuse, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, self harm, suicidal thoughts, relationship problems, rape, miscarriage, bi-polar disorder and post traumatic stress disorder.

I wanted to work with young people in order to help them work through their problems. The neighbouring county Bridgend has had a lot of teenage suicides in the last few years. I help them to talk about what they were feeling and why in a confidential and non-judgemental environment. My experience of counselling young people has shown me that young people have the inner resources to overcome their problems but that they need help with identifying their feelings and what they actually want from life.

The most inspirational aspect of my work with young people is observing how they change over the weeks that we work together and my pride in helping them become more self sufficient at understanding and solving their problems.