MANCHESTER, England, August 22 /PRNewswire/ -- The online counselling website, Kooth.com, has just been relaunched with a new look. The new site builds on the simple look so favoured by young people these days as demonstrated by websites such as MySpace, Bebo and YouTube.

Now operating in seven local authority areas in North West England, the Kooth service helps young people deal with a wide range of problems from alcohol and drug misuse through to bullying and depression.

Elaine Bousfield, Service Director of Kooth.com: "As we always do, we carried out a lot of research and consultation with end-users and what came out of that was a call from the young people we work with to give the site a more modest and clean design. The tastes of young people have moved on since we first launched the Kooth.com service in 2004 and we've reflected that in the new-look Kooth plus we've improved the usability and the accessibility of the site generally."

About Kooth.com

Kooth.com was funded by the then Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (Communities and Local Government) as an 'Invest To Save' initiative. It has been live in Stockport since 2004 and also operates in Cheshire, Halton, Wirral, St Helens, Warrington and, from September 2007, in Wigan.

The Kooth service consists of an online counselling and advice service supported by a rapid referral team. The counselling sessions take place on the website in secure chat rooms and via a private messaging system. Kooth.com also has message boards, online diaries for young people to complete and a magazine section where youngsters can find out about local services, events and news that affects them.

The free, confidential and anonymous service is staffed by a team of specially trained counsellors and advice workers, who also fully moderate the site checking the suitability of all the content to make sure Kooth.com remains a safe site for young people to use.

The URL for the Kooth service is www.kooth.com and more information about Kooth can be found at http://www.kooth.info. Kooth is a public/private partnership and is operated in Stockport by Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council and Xenzone Ltd.

Contact: Kooth Service Director Elaine Bousfield T: +44-(0)845-330-7090

Kooth Service Director, Elaine Bousfield, T: +44-(0)845-330-7090, M: +44-(0)7974-190136, E: elaine@xenzone.com