10 October 2023
Tuesday 10th October is World Mental Health Day 2023, where organisations across the globe come together to raise awareness of mental health issues and advocate for positive changes in mental health care.
Alarming statistics from 2022 reveal that 18.0% of children aged 7 to 16 years and 22.0% of young people aged 17 to 24 years had a probable mental disorder. These rates have remained stable since 2020 according to data from NHS Digital, 2022
Last year, The Julia and Hans Rausing Trust in collaboration with Westminster Foundation generously awarded £11 million to UK Youth. This investment was channelled into the creation of The UK Youth Fund – Thriving Minds, which provided grants to 99 youth organisations nationwide, focusing on mental health support for young people. Together, these organisations are making a significant impact on young people and helping them navigate their mental health challenges.
We wanted to take a moment today to spotlight some our grantees incredible work.
BrightStar Boxing Academy – West Midlands
Brightstar uses Boxing, education and mentoring to support young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Through their different programmes, they help to empower young people to thrive.
Through the Thriving Minds funding, they have been able to take on an additional member of staff which has enabled them to grow.
They are now working with over 600 young people each week across 6 areas of the West Midlands. 72% of young people have improved their mental health within the first 12 weeks and 95% have left with a positive outcome and qualification.
Together as One – Slough (South East)
Together as One has used the Thriving Minds funding to create Boost, a collaborative project with NHS Berkshire. Waiting for mental health treatment to start can be tough, especially for young people who are experiencing more complex mental health and emotional difficulties. Young people are referred to Together as One and are allocated a Boost Worker who will work closely with young people to make a personalised plan and help them to begin to feel better. They can provide a listening ear, help young people to understand their thoughts and feelings, and help them to do more of the things that they enjoy and that lift their mood like accessing local youth activities. Support from Boost is good preparation for therapy with their clinician, so when it begins young people will be ready to really get the most out of it.
20Twenty Productions
20Twenty Productions have been able to deliver a variety of wellbeing projects across Fenland due to the Thriving Minds grant. This has allowed them to expand their wellbeing team and to deliver a range of fantastic programmes.
From sporting programmes in schools and working with SEND groups to co creating wellbeing projects with young people to go on to deliver these programmes to over 200 young people. Their work wouldn’t be able to happen without the help of the Thriving minds grant.
Hear from Nia about their incredible work.
We know that investing in youth services leads to a reduction in the number of young people who need to be referred to CAMHS (Centre for Progressive Policy, 2020). Youth work has already been shown to save the taxpayer over £1.2bn per year by helping young people access timely mental health support and prevent crises (UK Youth & Frontier Economics, 2022). We at UK Youth want to increase that impact by embedding our mental health work at scale across the UK.
To find out more, visit our social media channels or https://www.ukyouth.org/thriving-minds/