We know that, for young people, having supportive relationships with the adults around them is crucial for improving their mental health. Whether it's parents, teachers, educational professionals, coaches or youth workers, these adults play a vital role in supporting young people to get the help they need.
This last year we've seen increasing referral thresholds in mental health services and difficulties accessing statutory support. We've also heard from many community-based organisations about how stretched they are on resources. And we've seen schools face ever-increasing challenges in the levels and complexity of mental health issues they are seeing in their pupils. Our support for parents, carers and professionals is needed now more than ever.
That's why our programme offers information and training to parents and adults who support young people, helping them gain confidence in providing crucial mental health support. Through our Parents Helpline, our community outreach, and our digital training, we aim to ensure all young people have someone to turn to when they need support, who can really make a difference.
Every young person has adults in their life who they can turn to
Every young person has adults in their life who they can turn to for help with their mental health, whether that's at home, at school or in their community.
Every adult who wants to help a young person, can
Every adult who wants to help a young person with their mental health can come to us to gain the skills and confidence to do so.
Our helpline and webchat provide a lifeline for thousands of parents and carers. We quickly and easily connect parents with our trained advisors who offer support, information and practical advice. This is then backed up by a dedicated email service as well as information and advice on our website.
Thanks to essential investment in our services, we’ve been able to increase our capacity and install new, more effective technology, with great results.
In the last 12 months, 25 very special volunteers have been instrumental in supporting over 15,000 parents by responding to helpline calls, web chats and emails.
Our team of volunteers are located across the UK, and volunteer either remotely from a confidential space in their home, or from the Parents Helpline room in our London office.
Volunteers are fully trained with regular training updates, and have the flexibility to sign up to different helpline shifts, so they can give their best support to young people. While on a shift, volunteers are supported by members of our staff team who are on hand to answer questions, provide guidance, escalate any concerns, and provide debrief spaces throughout the day.
Volunteers are also invited to join monthly sessions with members of our management team so they can receive updates and connect with other volunteers to share experiences and learnings.
Without their support, we wouldn't be able to provide support for so many of our parents, and we are very grateful for their time.
In April 2022, we launched a new community support section on our website. It provides information and resources for adults who lead youth activities in communities across the UK, aiming to help them better understand and support young people’s mental health. This includes practical videos, downloadable tools, and guides to different aspects and areas of mental health.
The lack of statutory support for community organisations continued into this year, with the added challenge of the cost-of-living crisis. Many organisations struggled to invest in staff and volunteer training in key areas such as mental health support and young people’s participation.
In response to this, from January to April 2023 we offered subsidised places to those who may not be able to afford to attend, asking for just £1.
We also heard from many community-based organisations that they are so stretched on resources that taking a whole day out of their staff time to do a training session was impossible. So we trialled two one-hour webinars: an Introduction to Participation; and Understanding Mental Health. We’re beginning to see this as a low-cost, bite-sized alternative way of learning for anyone who struggles to find a whole day to dedicate to training in one go.
In total, we trained 3,377 people across all four nations through our in-house and open access training offer, using a mix of digital and face-to-face sessions.
Our 360° Schools community of over 20,000 school staff continues to provide support for schools and offers targeted resources for pupils, staff and parents. Our wellbeing advent calendars remain our most popular edition, and this year we added an extra edition aimed at self-care for school staff over the holidays in response to the low levels of staff wellbeing being reported.
Schools continue to face ever-increasing challenges in the complexity of mental health issues they are seeing in their pupils. Anxiety was overwhelmingly the biggest single issue pupils were experiencing, and the support schools were offered from government-funded initiatives is not enough to meet the need for support.
As part of a pilot initiative, we offered a free, tailored whole-school approach to anxiety to 20 schools from across the country – ten primary and ten secondary. The activities within the pilot included:
Getting feedback from the whole school community.
Training and setting up pupil champions in each school.
Co-producing action plans on how to tackle anxiety within each school setting.
This pilot is being evaluated by QA Research and will give us a more evidence-based understanding of how we can achieve the greatest impact within schools for young people experiencing anxiety.