The New Zealand government is failing our youth. More needs to be done at early stages of New Zealand kids lives to help protect them. Counselling has been proven to be effective for treating many health conditions such as anxiety, depression and panic. It is therefore important that our youth get access to support through counselling, seeing as by the age of 18 one in five New Zealand kids will be affected by depression.

Not enough is being done to support kids in receiving fair access to counselling. Currently, the New Zealand associations of Counsellors is lobbying to get 1 counsellor per 400 students at secondary schools as they are overloaded with work and not able to help reach enough students in time to give them support. However, this is not enough.

We are proposing that the government take action too ensure that there are 2 counsellors per 400 students in all primary and secondary schools. This is because it is important to target our youth and get them help before it is too late. By having two counsellors per 400 students it ensures that the work load pressure is taken off the school counsellors so that they are able to talk to every kid who needs support without them having to wait weeks for an appointment.