Filling the gap: Why charities are stepping in where statutory services can't reach
Across Scotland, demand for children and young people's mental health support has continued to increase, especially with a reduction of funding in many statutory services. This is the gap that Cheviot Youth's, Insight Youth service has built to help fill.
Cheviot Youth is a Scottish Borders charity, established in March 2015, supporting young people's journey from childhood into adulthood through youth work, employability projects, activity programmes, and therapeutic mental health services. This year, it's on track to support 300 young people, increasing from 218 last year.
At the heart of its therapeutic offer is Insight Youth, the charity's counselling and emotional wellbeing service. While general youth work focuses on the Cheviot area, Insight Youth extends into the wider Borders area offering free, one-to-one therapy to young people aged 8–25 facing anxiety, low mood, trauma, and related difficulties.
A gap in rural provision
Over the past year, Cheviot Youth has seen rising referrals from Eyemouth and surrounding villages including the Fund area of Coldingham, Reston, Grantshouse, Cockburnspath. However, no comparable local counselling service existed in this area. Young people instead had to travel to Kelso or Tweedbank, a barrier repeatedly linked to missed appointments and disengagement. Through local consultation Cheviot Youth confirmed a strong preference for local, non-clinical spaces to talk freely and that were easily accessible.
As statutory services focus on highest-risk cases, third-sector organisations like Cheviot Youth are increasingly supporting young people before difficulties escalate, and who sit below the CAMHS threshold.
The response: A new local hub
To help bridge this gap, Cheviot Youth established an Insight Youth Wellbeing Hub in Eyemouth, running weekly from December 2025 for 12 months. The hub is providing free, confidential, trauma-informed counselling and psychotherapy for young people aged 11–25, removing the need to travel and making support accessible on young people's own doorstep.
The service is designed for those experiencing:
- Emotional distress
- Neurodivergent needs
- School non-attendance
- Low mood
- Family difficulties
By offering early intervention close to home, the hub aims to stop small difficulties escalating into crises requiring more intensive, costly support later on.
Made possible by the Drone Hill Fund
The Eyemouth hub has been made possible thanks to support from the Drone Hill Fund that contributed £7,000 towards the project in late 2025.
Ross Irvine from Cheviot Youth noted:
| “The support from the Drone Hill Wind Farm Community Benefit Fund has helped us increase therapeutic capacity for young people living in some of the more rural communities of East Berwickshire. It has enabled us to provide additional practitioner time, undertake local satellite work and continue developing our presence in the area while we work towards establishing a permanent base in Eyemouth. The need for accessible therapeutic support locally remains very clear, and the funding has helped us respond to that need in a practical way.” |
Expected impact
Across the wider Eyemouth pilot, the hub is expected to support 50–60 young people in 2026. Of these, 25–30 are anticipated to come specifically from the Drone Hill Fund area of Reston, Coldingham, Cockburnspath, Grantshouse, and Cove.
Cheviot Youth will track outcomes using recognised therapeutic measures, alongside feedback from clients and referrers, and data on engagement and attendance. Specifically, the organisation will monitor changes in:
- Wellbeing — reduced emotional distress, greater resilience
- Confidence — improved self-esteem and coping skills
- School attendance — better engagement in education
Why it matters
For young people in Eyemouth and the surrounding villages, this hub represents the chance to receive support without added challenges such as long journeys. It also reflects a broader shift taking place across Scotland's third sector, where charities are increasingly starting to provide the early, local, preventative support that overstretched statutory services are structurally unable to deliver at scale, particularly in rural areas.
Read more about the Drone Hill Fund here.