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This study used a Consensual Qualitative Research methodology to explore the motivations and experiences of young people who utilize the Internet for counselling over other counselling media. Semi-structured online group interviews (focus groups) were conducted with 39 participants from the Kids Help Line, a 24-hour national telephone and counselling service located in Australia. Analysis revealed five domains relevant to the adolescents' motives and experiences and the frequency of categories within and across cases were analyzed to generate and understand themes and patterns. Specific motivators and barriers are identified and discussed, as are implications for practice and continued research.

Kids Help Line is a national service providing free telephone counselling and online counselling to young people in Australia. This study used a naturalistic design and standardized measures to compare outcomes, session impact and therapeutic alliance for samples of 100 young people receiving a single session of telephone counselling and 86 young people receiving a single session of online counselling, provided by Kids Help Line. Results suggested that telephone counselling is associated with better counselling outcomes, higher session impact and stronger counselling alliance when compared with online counselling. The limitations imposed by a naturalistic design require caution in interpretation of the results. However, the pattern of results suggests that there are differences in effectiveness between telephone and online counselling. The most likely explanation is the greater communication efficiency of telephone counselling, which enables more counselling work to be undertaken in the time available. Implications for further development of online counselling are discussed.

Kids Help Line (KHL) is a national Australian youth counselling service that provides free online and telephone counselling. This qualitative study examines the experience of 26 online KHL counsellors. Using a focus group methodology, counsellor responses were organised into categories: privacy and an emotionally safe environment; communication through text; and time. Counsellors reported the main benefit of the online environment to be emotional safety, due to reduced client emotional proximity to the counsellor, and the main disadvantage to be that reduced emotional proximity and the absence of non-verbal cues could result in communication problems and difficulty in accurately assessing young people's concerns. Time proved a significant issue for counsellors, as the slow speed of text exchange could limit their ability to complete interventions. Methods that enhance both the process and effectiveness of online counselling are needed. Potential solutions to the challenges faced by online counsellors are discussed.