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.
Someone to turn to
Making sure young people have adults around them who can really help
We know that if a young person doesn’t feel able to speak to someone, or doesn’t yet realise that they need help, the adults around them can often be the first person to notice. Those aren't just parents, but also teachers, education professionals, coaches, and youth workers.
During the pandemic, the pressure on these adults, parents and carers to help young people cope has been huge. With the constant disruption of school, reduction or closure to professional services and specialist support, it's been tougher than ever.
That's why through this programme of information, support and training, we help these adults feel confident to offer that crucial mental health support that young people need. From our Parents Helpline to our community outreach and digital training, we can make sure that all young people have someone to turn to.
Our strategic aims
Every adult who wants to help a young person
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.
Parents Helpline
Our free Parents Helpline and online support, which we extended to web chat as well as email, is a lifeline for thousands, providing expert advice and guidance.
Last year our Helpline team answered 17,234 phone calls, web chats and emails, up 45% from the year before.
We also delivered 3,825 50-minute phone calls from our professional advisors who were able to provide further insight and support to parents whose children were experiencing complex difficulties with their mental health, up 31% from the previous year.
Overall, the rating of the service and the likelihood to recommend remained very high at 96%.
82% of those accessing the Parents Helpline felt more confident
81% learnt something new to support the mental health of the young person they cared for.
Supporting schools during the pandemic
Teaching staff have been even more on the frontline as students dealt with the return to face-to-face schooling, uncertainty, challenges of exams and dealing with traumatic experiences linked to the pandemic.
We redeveloped our face-to-face training and consultancy to online, testing and refining our delivery to make sure we found the best way to continue our training in this new virtual setting.
This included our work within the Department for Education’s Nature Friendly Schools programme. We worked with 88 schools across year one of this project, providing a tailored programme of training and consultation sessions for school staff to increase knowledge and understanding of mental health and wellbeing.
100% of schools who attended a consultation session said they would recommend it to a colleague.
We continued to support 13 schools to develop a whole-school approach to well-being, through a combination of training and consultancy. This was part of a three-year project working to embed resilience in schools across the county of Nottinghamshire.
100% of schools rated the training they received this year to be ‘good or excellent’.
Training the community
During the pandemic, adults who work with young people needed our support more than ever. We moved all of our training online as quickly as possible and, in this new format, we made a huge difference.
Training impact
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96% rated the training as ‘excellent’ or ‘good’.
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94% said they had something practical to do next following the course
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98% said that attending the training course will positively impact their practice.
