Thanks for taking the time to visit our JustGiving page.

In the UK, 1 in 10 children have a diagnosable mental health disorder but it’s still a taboo subject for many and that is where the problem starts – the fear of talking about it. People, especially teenagers, might not want to talk to their friends, through fear of ridicule or what their friends might think. Accepting you have a problem and reaching out for help is the first step, but probably the hardest step to take.

If you do accept you need help and are brave enough to ask for it, where do you go? There isn’t enough help out there and the waiting times for help on the NHS can be up to 6 months. It seems mental health isn’t treated as seriously as physical ailments and anyone who has experience of it knows all too well it can be a life or death situation. There have been well documented cuts to mental health provisions in England which means mental health charities are all the more important and desperately need our support.

In March 2018, I accepted a position as a Trustee atThe Young Peoples Counselling Service (YPCS).YPCS offer free counselling for 11-16yr olds, they only use fully trained and qualified counsellors and accept referrals from parents, schools, doctors and the children themselves. They have short wait times compared to NHS services and offer each child a course of 12 one-to-one sessions.

The cost of private counselling is £45+ per session, which means that a lot of parents face a decision of either long NHS wait times for their children to be seen or an additional financial burden of up to £540 a (considering 12 weekly sessions). This is the reason that YPCS was born 20 years ago – to help individuals and families in these situations.

YPCS receives no government funding and is a not-for-profit charity which means that every single penny raised goes straight back into directly helping young people in the local community. There is NO financial wastage!

It costs us £360 to provide a child with 12 sessions of counselling.

I decided last October I wanted to enter the Great Eastern Run half marathon after being inspired watching the runners who took part last year. I’m not a natural long distance runner so this will be a challenge for me but not only do I want to run, I want to put together a team who will run with me for YPCS so that we together we can help as many Young People as we can in 2018.

So my training and recruitment starts here along with my request for generous donations to help a much underfunded but needed service. I’m reaching out to my friends and colleagues hoping to raise at least £1080 which will be enough to give three teenagers 12 sessions

Thank you for reading