Principles for delivery of youth lay counsellor programs: Lessons from field experiences

Abstract

There is accumulating evidence that lay counsellors can effectively provide structured, evidence-based counselling interventions to improve mental health outcomes [1-4]. Lay counsellors help alleviate overburdened health systems that have limited numbers of mental health professionals through 'task-shifting,' a process of referring straightforward, or common mental health illness to lay workers who have received counselling training from mental health professionals [5].