ABOUT KYDS

People of all ages everywhere struggle with stress. But the rapid pace of life, and its many pressures are particularly hard on young people who are just starting to find their way.

In 2003, Lindfield Rotary became aware that an increasing number of young people in Ku-ring-gai were struggling with mental health issues, including the stigma associated with it. Sadly, there weren’t any local services available to help these young people.

Lindfield Rotary raised the funds and partnered with Ku-ring-gai Council to establish KYDS – a free, local, and confidential counselling service for children and young people. On 31 March 2005 KYDS opened its doors with one counsellor, who operated at the library in Lindfield. KYDS supported 36 young people in its first year.

Over the following 15 years, many other parts of the community also provided support to KYDS allowing it to grow and meet increasing demand.

Today, a team of 18 passionate and qualified mental health professionals support young people to work through their challenges and to help them to achieve their potential. Over the past year, we provided 5462 counselling sessions to more than 400 young people.

KYDS help young people understand, and manage, difficult issues in their lives. We do this by providing easily accessed, personalised counselling and mental health support services, family counselling, and early intervention wellbeing workshops and information events.

We ensure issues such as grief, loss, family breakups, friendship problems, school and study stress, addictions, risky behaviour, anger, bullying, anxiety, depression, alcohol and drug use, body image concerns, mental health concerns, self-harm and suicidal thoughts do not overwhelm young people.