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SW!TCH Minds supports mental health of young people in Havering

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March 18, 2024

We’re proud to announce that, thanks to funding from the Havering Clinical Commissioning Group, our SW!TCH Minds programme is currently supporting the mental health and wellbeing of young people in Havering.

With demand for mental health services for young people increasing dramatically in the wake of the pandemic, our team are working in partnership with three other organisations—HBBS Counselling, Relate, and the Sycamore Trust—in order to provide more comprehensive support to meet a wider spectrum of needs.

LifeLine Projects

Our dedicated Youth Development Workers are working with a cohort of 20 at-risk young people for a six-month period via weekly one-to-one mentoring sessions held in schools. Using our specialised VIP (Vision, Identity, Purpose) mentoring framework, young people take part in a shared journey with their mentor as they work towards clear goals for their future. The young person’s needs are always at the heart of our mentoring, while the mentor provides them with the trusted adult many of them say they need. Our team are also be working closely with school and pastoral support teams, as well as the young person’s family, to ensure a joined-up approach that fully captures the needs of each mentee.

Positive activities: a football session in Havering

This mentoring work is supported by a range of positive activities—such as sports, arts and craft, and workshops—held weekly within the community. These give young people from all backgrounds a space to come together, form new relationships, and build community. These activities also give our team an opportunity to engage with young people from the wider community as well as provide advice and guidance to them as required.

Young people who are dealing with more complicated issues can be referred to our partners to receive specialised support. This includes qualified counselling regarding anxiety and depression, loneliness, bullying, bereavement, and parental issues via HBBS Counselling, counselling, and family therapy via Relate, and specialist support and counselling for young people with autism spectrum disorder or learning difficulties via the Sycamore Trust.

The mentoring programme has helped me in so many different ways; to see that the teachers are not targeting me, and to focus more on my work.

LifeLine is very good–it has helped me to understand the teachers more and build a relationship with them. 

Young person

Having a mentor is a good and helpful experience. It’s always good to have someone to talk to because it can be a very hard time in your life. And it’s best to have someone that is understanding of your situation or problems. They talk to you like a friend and respect your limits, rather than a student with heaps of rules to follow. They understand you and teach you right from wrong in the best possible way.

Young person

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These articles may contain testimonials by LifeLine staff members and service users of our programmes and/or services. These testimonials reflect the real-life experiences and opinions of such staff members/service users. However, the experiences are personal to those staff members/service users and may not necessarily be representative of all staff members/service users of our programmes and/or services. We do not claim, and you should not assume, that all staff members/service users will have the same experiences. Individual results may vary.

Testimonials are submitted in various forms such as text, audio and/or video, and are reviewed by us before being posted. They appear in the newsletter in words as given by the staff members and service users, except for the correction of grammar or typing errors. Some testimonials may have been shortened for the sake of brevity where the full testimonial contained extraneous information not relevant to the general audience.

The views and opinions contained in the testimonials belong solely to the individual user and do not reflect our views and opinions. Staff members/service users are not paid or otherwise compensated for their testimonials.

 

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