We were delighted to welcome the charity Off the Record Bath and North East Somerset (OTR) to our school assemblies this week, supporting our students’ choice in selecting mental health as their Community Action Week focus.  

OTR are a mental health and wellbeing charity supporting young people aged 10-25 across Bath and NE Somerset, including here at Wellsway. Set up in 1994, we want every young person in our area to be emotionally healthy, confident and empowered in themselves. We help them to achieve this by providing counselling, listening support and a variety of other services, including LGBT+ specific support, advocacy for young people in care and participation services encouraging them to be active citizens in their community. 

Young people come to OTR with issues such as anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, gender questions, abuse, anger and bereavement. Since Covid, there has been a 40% increase in requests for our support, and we have identified that the most frequent interventions are becoming more severe, particularly regarding self-harm, suicidal thoughts and depression. In 2021 we helped over 2,100 young people and recorded over 30,000 contacts with young people accessing our service. Our research has shown consistent improvements in communication, confidence, resilience, aspirations and determination of the young people we work with.  

We want to keep offering our free listening support and counselling services to as many young people in crisis as possible. Our support is open to any young person living or studying in BaNES.  The money we receive goes directly to improving the emotional health and wellbeing of young people. 

• £10 buys a young person the chance to be heard in a listening support session. 
• £30 buys a counselling session for a young person in crisis. 
• £100 buys six weeks of one to one support for a young person at breaking point. 

For further information on volunteering with OTR, please go to our website: https://www.offtherecord-banes.co.uk/volunteer