Visiting St Stephen School with Youth Mental Health Foundation CiC

Youth Mental Health Foundation CiC have been building mental health resilience and self-esteem with year 6s across Launceston. This year, they applied to Cornwall Community Foundation for funding and were awarded £1000 from Carew Pole in April 2024 and £1,636 from the North Cornwall FundA sum of money made available for grant making, often with specific criteria/conditions. in September 2024.

Grateful for the difference this funding has made, they invited our team to one of their resilience-building workshops, hosted at St Stephens Community Academy. 

The Youth Mental Health Foundation was first developed by Claire Sutton. Her daughter, Jade, has ADHD and from the age of 9 faced huge personal struggle at school, academically, socially, and with her own mental health. Her’s is a story of resilience as she fought to overcome severe anxiety, depression and an eating disorder between the ages of 11 and 13. 

Supporting her own daughter through this recovery, Claire established Youth Mental Health CiC to support young people through assemblies. Jade joined her, telling her story in these assemblies and how she overcame challenges with positive goals. 

In doing so, Jade aimed to de-stigmatise mental health, encouraging everyone (including the teachers) to believe in themselves and their dreams. Whatever those dreams may be.

Her work has been internationally recognised. She has been interviewed on the ITV News, featured in a BBC documentary about mental health, shortlisted for a National Diversity Award, in the category of ‘Positive Role Model for Young People’ and most recently has been invited to be a keynote speaker at a United Nations endorsed, global conference on neurodiversity.

Now she’s at university and her dad, Joel, delivers these workshops to both primary and secondary schools, though if available Jade will zoom into the class. 

To date they have visited over 120 schools and spoken to over 35,000 school children.

“The two- and half-hour workshop was interactive, encouraging, fun and helped us understand that we are all different, but we are all geniuses. When we stopped for break time the children asked if we would be there when they returned as they were enjoying the session.”
– Lisa Dymond, Grants Officer for Cornwall Community Foundation

“We are so grateful for these workshops and to the people who coordinated our involvement in them. St Stephens Community Academy know the importance of not only our physical health but also our mental health. This amazing workshop greatly support our school drive to support their pupil’s overall well-being and to learn coping strategies to navigate the ups and downs of life”.
– Teacher Miss Neale