Department for Children, Schools and Families

The Department for Children, Schools and Families is working with YouthNet to provide a three-year programme of activity to offer expert relationship advice through our online agony aunt service askTheSite.

Following increasing requests from young people in desperate need of informed guidance to help make decisions in life, YouthNet identified the need for a comprehensive and anonymous internet-based advice source. In response to this need, we developed askTheSite and launched the service at the House of Commons in 2005.

YouthNet is delighted to receive funding under the Children, Young People and Families Grant Programme to enable five Relationship Advisors on askTheSite to provide free and confidential answers to all questions within three working days. In 2006, the first year of the project, the support of the Department for Children, Schools and Families enabled us to answer 3,224 individual questions, complemented by over 700,000 visits to the askTheSite archive of previously answered questions.

"After reading my answer I realised that I am not alone and help is there but I just didn't know how to get to it. Thank you so much," askTheSite user.

The Relationship Advisors also play a vital role in mentoring and training young people to become online volunteer peer advisors for askTheSite. These volunteers field similar questions based on a unique blend of experience and empathy for their own peer group.

By providing high quality advice, Relationship Advisors and volunteer peer advisors directly contribute to young people's positive emotional, mental, sexual and physical health, which are key aims of the Children, Young People and Families Grant Programme.