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To be honest I’m not entirely sure how I got involved in researching the development of online counselling services. In fact when I look back it just seemed to stumble in my direction. In my previous workplace, a small youth-friendly counselling service called visyon (Hanley & Morrison, 2003), someone mentioned ‘young people’,‘technology’and ‘mental health’in a funding bid and before we knew it there was a small pot of gold to develop an online counselling pilot project to support the existing face-to-face service. This sparked an interest in me that has so far led to the completion of two Master’s (of varying quality) and the involvement with numerous agencies that have been setting up similar services. More recently I received a research council studentship to complete a PhD focusing upon the subject matter, a process that I am about midway through. My PhD work continues from the study presented in this special …