The Place2Be works inside schools to improve the emotional wellbeing of children, their families and the whole school community.
They offer emotional support to children to help them cope with life’s difficulties which range from physical and sexual abuse, domestic violence, family breakdown and bereavement.
The Place2Be currently works in 172 primary and secondary schools across the UK, supporting 58,000 children up to the age of 13 and their families - often in areas of great deprivation.
How will our money help?
Over £600,000 has been awarded to support around 10,000 children in Greenwich, Croydon, Nottingham, Manchester and Edinburgh.
Cost saving to society
For every £1 invested in The Place2Be there is a £6 cost saving to society.
How The Place2Be makes a difference?
- One to one and group counselling to meet children's and families needs.
- Whole school support to help children manage challenging behaviour and engage in the classroom better.
- Provides dedicated support for parents and carers.
- Delivers high quality training.
Key benefits
- Better mental health and wellbeing of children and young people.
- Children are better able to learn which enhances their prospects.
- More engaged parents.
- Improved staff morale and welfare.
- More capacity to support children's emotional wellbeing issues.
About Family Action
Family Action is the UK’s leading family charity, supporting over 45,000 families every year. They tackle some of the most complex and difficult issues facing families today – including domestic abuse, mental health problems, learning disabilities and severe financial hardship.
We work with whole families to help them find solutions to problems, no matter how difficult, so that they become safer, stronger and more optimistic about their future.
How our money helped?
Family Action's Building Bridges services provide emotional and practical support to each of the family members where a parent has a mental health problem. The approach promotes the involvement of other agencies and encourages them to work together and coordinate their services.
Our funding of a project worker in Greenwich over two years helped to run support groups, drop in services and activities for families during school holidays.
In Edenbridge, Kent, our funding covered part of the costs for a part-time worker to help families in a large rural area.
And finally, we part funded the costs of the Head of Strategic Development for three years to develop the Building Bridges service.
About The Prince's Trust
Around one in five young people in the UK are not in work, education or training. Youth unemployment costs the UK economy £10 million a day in lost productivity, while youth crime costs £1 billion every year.
The Prince's Trust gives practical and financial support to around 40,000 young people each year who need it most. They help develop key skills, confidence and motivation, enabling young people to move into work, education or training.
How will our money help?
Through The Prince's Trust flagship Team programme, 8,000 disadvantaged young people aged 16-25 are given the skills, confidence and emotional resilience to get them into education, training and employment.
Around half of those young people on the Team programme need additional mental health support.
Zurich Community Trust is funding the introduction of student social workers on the Team programme to:
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Support the mental health needs of around 5,000 vulnerable young people a year on the Team programme
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Provide placements for 400 student social workers by giving them real life experience of working with disadvantaged young people.
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Help The Prince's Trust staff and Team leaders become better at identifying those with mental health problems and be better equipped to support them.
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Develop and distribute desk based mental health training materials for The Prince's Trust staff and student social workers.
About the Mental Health Foundation
The Mental Health Foundation is a leading UK charity that provides information, carries out research, campaigns and works to improve services for anyone affected by mental health problems.
The Foundation aims to help people of all ages and wherever they to survive, recover and prevent mental health problems.
How our money will help
It’s a staggering fact that one in ten children or a young person has a diagnosed mental health problem at any one time. These may include depression, anxiety or eating disorders. Self-harm is often a by-product of these disorders or a sign of poor coping.
It is also a well known fact now that most adult mental illness is a result of something that happened in childhood.
Charities can play a vital role in raising awareness of mental health issues and improving the way that services are delivered to children and young people. A lack of unified voice is a major barrier to this small sector moving forward. It is also under-resourced in comparison to the scale of the problem and influencing change can be difficult.
- The Coalition will bring charities together from the mental health world and charities that focus on children and young people.
- The aim is to create a single unified voice to campaign on behalf of children and young people in relation to their health and wellbeing.
- It is hoped that this will lead to policy changes that will directly improve services too.
This could transform the sector by giving it the voice it needs to lever large scale changes needed in policy and increased services.
The lives of many individuals and families could be improved and the impact on society enormous, not least in potential savings.
There will also be opportunities for employees to engage with this project.
