Free individual counseling, evening sessions among measures to strengthen mental health support for youth

Yangcheon-gu District Mayor Lee Gi-jae. [Yangcheon-gu]
Yangcheon-gu District Mayor Lee Gi-jae. [Yangcheon-gu]

The Yangcheon-gu Youth Counseling and Welfare Center in Seoul has been named a top-performing institution and ranked among the top 15 centers nationwide in the 2026 Youth Counseling and Welfare Center Comprehensive Evaluation. The assessment covered 235 centers across the country.

Yangcheon-gu announced Tuesday that the center earned high marks in key indicators — including the effectiveness of its youth safety-net services, which measure how much a young person's risk level improves after using counseling and support services, and overall center operations and performance management. The results placed it among the top 15 institutions eligible for a commendation from the Minister of Gender Equality and Family. The ministry-led evaluation comprehensively reviewed human and physical infrastructure, project performance and operational outcomes over three years from 2023 to 2025.

The center has run a range of programs tailored to the needs and characteristics of young people, including psychological counseling and school violence prevention initiatives. It also operates Family Understanding, a program designed to improve communication between parents and children, and a peer counseling club that helps youth from immigrant backgrounds build social connections and adapt to their communities.

The center has made particular efforts to lower barriers to professional counseling so that young people can seek help regardless of cost or time constraints. Starting in July last year, it eliminated the previous 5,000-won per-session fee for individual youth counseling, making it entirely free, and launched a pilot evening counseling service running until 9 p.m. on weekdays. It also expanded its professional counseling staff and added counseling rooms to improve accessibility and convenience.

As a result, the number of clients increased 30 percent year-on-year and the number of counseling sessions rose 28 percent. Building on those gains, the district this year made the evening counseling service permanent, allowing students who cannot attend daytime sessions due to school schedules — as well as working parents who find it difficult to visit with their children during the day — to access counseling on weekday evenings until 9 p.m.

The Yangcheon-gu Youth Counseling and Welfare Center is located on the second floor of the Sinwol 6-dong Administrative Complex and is open to any young person between the ages of 9 and 24 who needs counseling or support. The district plans to deepen cooperation with schools and other youth-related organizations in the community to identify at-risk youth early and connect them with counseling and welfare services suited to their individual circumstances in a timely manner.

"This recognition as a top institution is a meaningful achievement made possible by the dedication of frontline workers and the community's collective efforts to support the mental health of young people," District Mayor Lee Gi-jae said. "We will continue building a robust support system so that young people do not have to face their struggles alone and can comfortably seek help whenever they need it."


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