Youth Mental Health Foundation

This is one of our main projects. Funding will be used to deliver a live, face-to-face program across Devon, to support parents and carers of young people (aged 8-17 years old) whose child/teen is suffering with health. The goal of the program is to equip these parents and carers to effectively support the young person’s healing. The program will provide parents/carers with: 1) Psychoeducation & skills training: guiding parents/carers to support the recovery of a young person suffering with their mental health using our evidence based clinical intervention. 2) Parental self-care: teaching parents how to care for their own mental and emotional health to best support their child. 3) Guidance to access existing statutory and non statutory support: offered by schools, CAMHs and local and national support groups. 4) Peer support: “A peer-support model is highly powerful in this area. Lived experience often speaks with more authority to people in crisis (and more generally suffering) than professional input, which can at times feel impersonal, invalidating, conflicted and can even be experienced as harmful in some instances.” - Dr D Starley. 4) Knowledge of how to secure support from statutory agencies. 

Delivery cost per group programme:

• Pre-planning & set-up = £820.00
• Session delivery @ £388.80 per session x 18 sessions = £7000.72
• Measuring & reporting (coordinating with Exeter Uni) = £345.00
• Workbook design = £575.00
• Stationary & binders = £100.00
• Supervision = £450.00
• Whats App support group setup and running = £675.00

Total: £9966.00

The goal of the Horizon Plan, our online course, is to support the parents/carers of young people struggling with mental health to play a central role in their child’s recovery. The money would be used to produce further modules of the course.

Through guiding hundreds of parents and carers to better support a young person suffering with mental health and self-harming issues, the YMHF has built a educational support structure clinical intervention for parents caring for a young person. The support is delivered as an online course, called The Horizon Plan, which already has over 600 users and the support of NHS Trusts, mental health charities and healthcare professionals, who refer parents to it as a free support resource.  

By providing preventative support for families at the earliest possible stage, we can help prevent escalation of mental health issues and support parents to help young people recover from mental health issues and reach their full potential, within the family unit, without professional intervention.

Community Consultation & Co-Creation

The project is based around the mental health community, derived from genuine experience and then developed by a team of healthcare professionals and families with lived experience, who formed the working group for the first module. 

The working group consults on each step forward to ensure currency and accessibility for users. Feedback from all users has been very positive with proven impact and success in many cases. 

Community input is collected through online surveys, live interviews with families on module one, from families on our Board of Advisors, consultations with partners and through our social media group which has several thousand members.

Our community has resoundingly communicated the need for this project to help them care for young people who self-harm. Essentially, this project has been initiated by the community it serves and is dedicated to helping young people engage with and recover from mental health issues, with the active support of their parents or carers.

Evidence of success to date:

• 2 x successful pilot studies completed
• Over 600 parents/carers enrolled on course
• 100% positive feedback from students (see attached survey responses for particular benefits reported by students)
  • 65% of enrolled parents and carers reported they are “Very keen” to proceed to the next part of the course.
  • 31% of students “Keen” to proceed to the next part of the course.
• Online course is recommended by numerous NHS trusts, Recovery Colleges and charities working in youth and adult mental health (Devon NHS Trust, Tower hamlets NHS Trust etc You could list the names of these)
• £10k funding secured from National Lottery Awards for All grant to create 2nd module in 2021 and £5k funding secured from Devon Community Foundation’s Communities: Local Action on Suicide Prevention grant to contribute towards creating the 3rd module.

Budget Breakdown:

Assemblies:

To date, we’ve supported over 35,000 pupils in over 90 primary and secondary schools in Devon by delivering assemblies to encourage and inspire young people and destigmatise mental health. The assemblies are delivered via Zoom, by 18-year-old Jade Sutton, who helps her young audience to destigmatise mental health and find it easier to ask for help; Be resilient and understand that setbacks and disappointments are for learning and make us stronger; Accept, respect and celebrate our differences and our dreams; Build self-esteem and see an inspiring future for themselves.

Here is a short documentary made about Jade and her assemblies, called ‘What’s Your Story’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CHYEgLA3jg&t=589s 

Demonstrated impact of Assemblies:

• Destigmatise mental health and make it easier for student to ask for help.
   
• Improve mental health resilience by guiding pupils to envisage an inspiring future for themselves and develop an understanding that setbacks & disappointments are for learning and make us stronger.
   
• Build tolerance and respect for others.

Workshops

Our workshops are 2-hour sessions for young people aged 9 – 14. They are led by 17-year-old Jade Sutton, supported by an adult.  Jade’s age and life experience enables her to connect with her young audience and engage them in the material.

Before the workshop, each young person takes an online ‘Genius Quiz’ which reveals their Genius type. The workshop then explains and explores the four genius types through team games, activities and videos. Participants learn their unique thinking and learning styles, gaining confidence in their natural strengths, and learning that it’s natural and totally OK not to be great at everything. The broader understanding of all genius types also enables participants to better understand and collaborate with others through teamwork. The workshop then stimulates participants to explore what they enjoy in life (their passions) and inspires them to identify how they want to make this world a better place (their purpose).

Discover your GENIUS: natural talents and path of least resistance to success.

Identify your PASSION: what personal goal inspires you. 

Commit to GIVING BACK: identify how to make this world a better place. 

Demonstrated impact of workshops:

Feedback from participating schools has revealed that our workshops help pupils to develop the confidence of knowing more about who they are, their natural strengths and weaknesses, what they are passionate about and how they want to make the world a better place.

• Improved self-awareness, confidence and self-esteem.
   
• Increased mental health resilience (stress/anxiety/depression).
   
• Improved understanding and acceptance of neurodiversity (ADHD, Dyslexia, Autism etc)
   
• More likely to make positive life choices (alcohol, drugs, crime etc).
   
• Increased empathy and ability to cooperate with others.
   
• Increased engagement and motivation in schoolwork.
   
• Improved optimism and outlook on life.

This workshop has been created in partnership with Know Your Purpose, a registered charity, who have delivered it five times to over 100 young people in New Zealand. We have successfully delivered our workshop for 350 pupils at nine schools and youth clubs in Devon and a longer a 2-day version to 12 young people in Totnes in 2019.

Testimonial

“Today, Jade delivered her assembly to the whole school all about following your dreams and the value of diversity. All of the children, from our 4 year olds up to our 11 year olds, were engrossed and completely engaged. This was probably due to Jade's excellent presentation skills and the interesting and inclusive content of the assembly. The story that Jade told contained a wonderful range of inspiring and heartfelt experiences that all children seemed to relate to and learn from. We now have lots of follow up activities and lessons planned that continue the themes raised in the assembly. Massive thanks to Jade for this brilliant experience for our children - please come back again soon!” - Mr Baxter, Kenn C of E Primary School

Cost:

Claire Sutton - Content Development Director

Claire is the Founder of the Youth Mental Health Foundation and mother to three children. Her lived experience of guiding her own teenage daughter’s recovery from years of self-harm led to her creating the Horizon Plan methodology. She has subsequently coached parents and healthcare professionals around the world.

Dr Lynn Suter - Clinical Director

BA (Hons.) BSc. (Hons), MSc, DPsych, CPsychol (Chartered Psychologist) and AFBPsS (Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society)

Dr Lynn Suter originally trained as an occupational psychologist, specialising latterly in learning and development. She then retrained and achieved her Doctorate in Psychotherapy and practised as a counselling psychologist. She has worked in the NHS, in both primary and secondary care. In addition she has worked as Clinical Director of a 3^rd sector counselling agency and in counselling for students.

Calvin Malcolm - Head Psychotherapist

Calvin is a Systemic Family Psychotherapist with over twenty-two years of experience in Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services within the UK’s NHS. He has a vast knowledge of child & adolescent mental health difficulties and the impact this has on the young person, their family, and the wider system, including their schooling.

He currently teaches on the Foundation Course to Family Therapy at Plymouth University, supervises trainee Systemic Practitioners on the CYP IAPT Course at the University of Exeter and held an honorary tutor post in the teaching of Systemic Family Therapy on the Post Grad Doctorate Clinical Psychology Course at Leicester University.

Calvin has trained many family therapists to become qualified family therapists and as a qualified Systemic Family Therapy Supervisor has supervised many others.

Dr. Pia Pechtel - Research Director 

MPhil, PhD in Psychology, Registered Clinical Psychologist (HCPC), Wellcome Trust Research Fellow

Pia received her PhD in Psychology in New Zealand where she helped to develop national therapy guidelines for sexual abuse. She then joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School in the US to study the impact of trauma on the brain before completing her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Exeter.

She is a registered Clinical Psychologist who specialises in working with young people who experienced trauma and who find self-harm helpful. She has worked in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services and currently volunteers her time in a NHS specialist service for sexual abuse. Pia also runs a research programme at the University of Exeter funded by the Wellcome Trust. Her research combines clinical psychology and developmental neuroscience to understand the neural mechanisms of self-harm and how this could help to develop better support for young people and families.

Sarah Marwick - Director of Youth Genius

Sarah is an entrepreneur, educator and Founder of Know Your Purpose, a charity that guides teenagers to recognise their individual strengths, passions and purpose and make the positive difference they want to see in the world. She is an instructional designer of e-learning and face-to-face training programs and the owner and Managing Director of Edutech KM Ltd, a learning solutions company that designs and delivers training programs for businesses. She is a qualified high school teacher and mother of three grown-up children, and two stepchildren.

Jade Sutton - Youth Lead

Jade is 17 years old and has spoken to over 35,000 young people about mental health, visiting over 70 schools. She has been interviewed several times on the national TV news and radio about teen mental health. She was shortlisted for a National Diversity Award 2018 as a 'Positive Role Model For Young People'. She is dedicated to destigmatising the issue of youth mental health and encouraging other young people with her recovery story.

Joel Sutton - Commercial & Partnerships 

Joel is a businessman, father and co-founder of The Youth Mental Health Foundation. He is passionate about sharing a father's perspective on the issue of child self-harm, coaching parents to play a key role in their child's healing and promoting awareness of the Horizon Plan to parents and healthcare professionals globally.