Title of the project: Illuminate: Your Mind
About you – a short description of your organisation and the team
Our vision is to make Hammersmith & Fulham the best place in London to be a young person. Our mission is to support our Membership to provide meaningful and memorable opportunities for young people.
We do this by:
• Raising and distributing funding
• Creating collaborative networks
• Campaigning for young people
How will we achieve their aims?
• We will fundraise with our consortium to deliver new projects for young people
• We will fundraise through partnerships to distribute grants to our Membership
• We will construct networks between the voluntary, public, and private sectors
• We will establish new relationships between individuals and organisations
• We will create opportunities for young people to have a say in decisions that impact their lives
• We will understand and respond to the wants and needs through youth voice
• We will effectively communicate and promote our Member projects for young people
We want to help make a happier, healthier, and safer place which we will by building a better system of children and young people’s services in Hammersmith and Fulham. This will be by improving partnerships and coordination between services, increasing funding and resources for organisations and by providing a ‘go to’ for high-quality information for Members, Partners, and the public.
Our Membership is open for everyone that engages with children and young people aged 0-25. This includes youth clubs, charities, schools, businesses, voluntary groups, and the public sector.
Illuminate – Your Mind is a group of young people from Hammersmith and Fulham, aged between 14 – 18. They all come from different backgrounds and have unique experiences of growing up in the borough. They each have a passion to be positive role models to their peers and have a strong interest in research. Working together they have produced a dynamic approach to gain a better understanding of how youth provisions within the borough can be more inclusive to all. Dedicating their time to this research they have collectively unified their skillset to consciously make a difference while being a part of the process. Nekisha De Costa the youth worker supporting the project has worked with young people for the last 15 years in a multitude of settings. She is committed to her work as a youth worker and extremely passionate about the future of young people.
Research Brief
What are you aiming to do and why?
We want to understand and recognise the barriers young people with poor mental health face accessing youth services, raise awareness around poor mental health in young people, and remove stigmas associated with mental health. We want to understand the challenges young people with poor mental health face when accessing youth services and look at tangible ways to change this.
Who are you targeting the work at?
Young people aged 14 to 18 with poor mental health in Hammersmith and Fulham
What are you trying to influence?
We are trying to influence youth services and young people.
Contact details – who should people contact
Kisha de Costa (nekishadecosta@gmail.com)
Gareth Dixon (gareth@yhff.org.uk)