‘A HELPING HAND’

In the fourth year of our Mentoring Programme in Jersey, funded by HSBC, the young people concentrated their social action project, ‘A Helping Hand’, on mental health support services for the Jersey’s youth, both within and beyond secondary education.  

Research carried out by the mentees, supported by The Diana Award, showed that only 36% of young people recognised when they needed to seek support for their mental health.* In order to tackle this issue and support more young people with mental health, they created presentations for schools, created social media content, engaged with the Children’s Minister and raised money for local mental health services, including the ‘YES’ project.

It was found that, 37% of young people do not know the warning signs if they do need mental health support*. Amongst the committee’s goals to raise awareness about the importance of understanding mental health with young people, they wanted to help encourage boys to talk about mental health and educate parents and teachers to start those conversations. Since this was a youth-led project, young people played a key role in guiding adults on how best to provide support.

The mentees conducted a survey with the aim of exploring mental health support services available to young people. The survey reached approximately 1,370 secondary students and received around 900 responses. Key themes from the survey results included:

• 53% of young people have had poor mental health with 50% believing that more work can still be done to help.  

• Young people demonstrated urgent concern in seeking mental health services, specifically related to waiting times and staff shortages in their schools.  

• 63% felt like their school could not give them good solutions, resulting in a concern regarding teachers’ lack of experience in addressing mental health issues.  

• 66% of young people felt uncomfortable sharing for fear that their issues would not be kept confidential.  

They secured funding from ‘Kezia’s Fund’ through the Jersey Community Foundation, allowing them to collaborate with spoken word artist Christian Foley. Foley wrote and recorded a poem based on the survey findings, which the mentees turned into a storyboard and video shared on social media to promote their campaign.  

The mentees also created an impact report and presented their findings during the final Mentoring Programme group session to an audience that included mentors, teachers, youth workers, family members, emergency services representatives, and the Children's Commissioner for Jersey. Following their presentation, they were encouraged to present their report to the Director of Mental Health & Adult Social Care in September 2023.

The mentees received outstanding feedback, including the following:  

“It helped me to understand all the hard work and dedication they have all put into their social justice project… Everyone who presented spoke so eloquently, and I found the poem as a result of their research, to be very powerful and moving. What a fantastic example of participation being embedded into the roots of change here.”

• Office of the Children’s Commissioner for Jersey

*Survey carried out in August 2023 reaching secondary school students across Jersey, aged 11-18.