A NEW national system which will see every teenager in the country entitled to their own "personal adviser" is being piloted at a York school.

The introduction of personal advisers will come in from April this year as part of a service called Connexions.

At the moment, teenagers can end up having to see five or six adults who deal with different issues in their lives - these could be a teacher, a careers adviser, a social worker, a youth worker, and for some, a police officer.

The idea of the new system is that anyone aged between 13 and 19 will be entitled to their own personal adviser, who is likely to be based at school, college or at the careers service.

At Oaklands School, in Acomb, York, teacher Amanda Lane has taken on the role of personal adviser for two days of her working week in a joint pilot project which is being run with Lowfield School.

She said: "It might be a young person having trouble with coming to school because of family problems, or it might be a teenager interested in getting a work placement or trying to set up a careers interview.

"We started by identifying kids who needed support, but now the demand is growing. They're coming in here for advice and asking: 'Is Mrs Lane here?'"

She said the Year Ten students taking part had also asked for her to start a "social skills group" where they discussed issues like relationships.

"The other thing we're trying to do is link up different services. A young person could be in trouble with the police, for example, but the police can't tell us, the school because it's confidential; or there may be a family break-up but we can't tell social services.

The idea is one person will have information from all the agencies, as long as it is with the permission of the young person, so we can build up a whole picture."

Allan Hunton, managing director of Guidance Services Ltd, which runs the careers service in York and North Yorkshire, said the Connexions service would be run by a partnership of organisations which would include the careers service, youth services, youth offending teams, social services, schools and colleges.

The existing £5.1 million careers service budget will come out of the Connexions service from April and the Government will be giving the York and North Yorkshire an extra £1.6 million on top of that.

Eleven other schools in the region are also doing pilot projects.