The Worval Foundation supports Head Out young peoples’ programme

The Worval Foundation has invested £7,000 to fund BF Adventure’s Head Out early intervention programme to help more young people experiencing mental health challenges. The project supported 11 young people to build their resilience, confidence and coping strategies through outdoor activities, group workshops and one to one support.

The Worval Foundation aims to make a life changing impact for young disadvantaged people aged between 10 and 15 years who are on the edge of exclusion from school or are finding it hard to cope.

The Head Out programme is tailored to meet the needs of the young people, encouraging them to try new things on a challenge by choice basis, where they set their own level of challenge and support each other to achieve their aims.

Following the sessions at BF Adventure, leaders also met with young people back in their educational setting to facilitate discussions with their key workers and to support the transfer of the young peoples’ new skills into wider areas in their life.

BF Adventure’s Inclusion Coordinator, Jeni Stephens, commented “Every young person took something away with them that they had achieved and continue to implement the coping strategies they have learnt into everyday life. In particular one young person showed a huge improvement; he initially attended 1:1 sessions with us before joining the group and at first found it very hard to stay in the group, often taking himself away from his peers, needing to take time in with a member of staff to calm down and manage his emotions. When his group sessions finished, we met with him in school and they said how they had noticed the huge impact the programme at BF had had on him.”