Aviva Community Fund has provided £576 of match funding
Someone To Talk To
London, England, United Kingdom
Aim
To bring vital mental health awareness and psycho-therapy sessions to child is desperate need of support across London.
Someone to Talk To
About Us
Little Lives Uk was founded in 2017 to support disabled, disadvantaged and vulnerable children across London. Our mission is to ease the stresses felt by children and those caring for them and enable them to reach their fullest potential. In supporting children and allowing them to be carefree, we hope to see them grow into responsible, safe and happy adults, with the goal ultimately to break the cycle of child poverty and suffering.
Since our launch in 2017 we have run over twenty-seven grassroots projects. Spanning a broad range of issues including; providing specialist health equipment to families for children with disabilities, holistic services for a children’s hospice and funding after school sports activities. These campaigns have enabled us to build strong and trusting relationships with our community.
Throughout our previous works and in listening to our community we identified a number of underlying systemic issues which exacerbated social immobility and greatly disadvantages many in our London community. Particularly the dual disadvantage faced by those who have serious additional mental health needs and are from low-income backgrounds.
Our ‘Someone To Talk To’ project targets these often intertwined issues through providing a free mental health service to children and young people who need it most.
The Mental Health Crisis.
We hear time and time again that there is a mental health crisis amongst our children and young people. An NHS study found 1 in 8 children and young people aged between 5 and 19 have a diagnosable mental health disorder. Meaning is an average of three children with diagnosable mental health disorders in every school class, and more than 100,000 across London.
We have all been feeling the strain that the pandemic is having our mental health and studies have shown that this trend is even more dire in our children and young people. A study by Oxford University found that mental health issues in children and young people has increased by over 36% during the pandemic.
Furthermore, there is a hidden inequality in the accessibility of access to mental health care. Research has concluded that rates of mental health disorders in lower income households is double that of those in the highest income demographic. These disparities can be partly linked to access to mental health services. Those who cannot afford private clinics, often face wait times of 6 months (1/5) and 1/4 of those referred to mental health services were not accepted into treatment.
Investing in the mental health of children and young people is key as half of all adult mental illness starts before a child reaches the age of 14 and 75% of lifetime mental health disorders have their first onset before 18 years of age. By building strong mental foundations and coping mechanisms in youth, children and young people's outcomes are greatly improved.
How Can We Help?
Someone To Talk To will provide free psycho-therapy sessions on-line to high-schoolers and in person to children in primary schools.
Schools are an effective place to run outreach for this project as a study published in the Journey of European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry found that, “schools across England are increasingly a focus of attention as a key site for support for mental health and wellbeing and previous research has shown that teachers are the most commonly contacted mental health support.”
Outreach comes in the form of self-referral through confidential drop boxes and teacher/parent referrals. These free private sessions in a neutral known environment, schools, with a trained professional is an effective way to provide this to those who otherwise would not usually have access to such services.
Alongside outreach and psycho-therapy sessions, we are additionally planning to run awareness raising campaign, #LittleTruths in the schools taking part in the project.
Initially this campaign will be launched on social media to raise awareness of the importance of nurturing your mental health and destigmatise asking for help. We then aim to expand #LittleTruths into schools. Through speeches, assemblies and mental health workshops. Possibly taking this further to provide teacher training on supporting student’s mental health and how to identify worrying behaviours through the workshops.
This will form a rounded, early intervention program. Supporting children and young people with serious mental health needs through psycho-therapy sessions, whilst also working to de-stigmatise mental health and promote wellness in the wider community of young people in London.
What Difference Will Someone To Talk To Make?
In investing in children and young people's mental health, you are investing in their future. In the research stage for this project we consulted with educationalists and psychologists on the proposed effectiveness Someone To Talk To. Those we have spoken to are incredibly positive about the benefits of the program. Proposed outcomes include:
- Improved attainment in school,
- Improved educational outcomes,
- Improved personal wellness and happiness,
- Improved future employment outcomes,
- Decreased risk of substance abuse,
- Decreased risk of engaging in criminal behaviour,
- Decreased risk of suicide and self-harm.
All of these behaviours are connected to poor mental health in youth. Thus, to invest mental health in childhood and youth is to invest in tackling the immediate needs of the beneficiary and improve their lifelong outcomes, therefore, increasing social mobility.
Where Will Your Donation Go?
At Little Lives UK we believe in transparency and your donations directly benefiting our children and community. All the money raised will go to pay for a professional child psychologist to run the psychotherapy sessions.
Thank you for your interest in supporting Someone To Talk To.
This project successfully funded on 20th April 2021