Most Admired Charity YoungMinds
By Bracher, Tricia
YoungMinds has realised some major ambitions this year, including a key legislative change. Tricia Bracher looks at the only UK-wide charity dedicated to the mental health of children and young people According to this year’s Unicef report, the UK is one of the unhappiest places in which to grow up, and Office of National Statistics figures show that one in 10 children has a diagnosable mental disorder. For YoungMinds, working to change this grim state of affairs is vital.
As children’s author Philip Pullman puts it: “Mental and emotional disorders are hard enough to cope with at any age, but for young people they are especially painful. YoungMinds does wonderful work in helping children and young people.”
Pullman, patron of the charity and sponsor of its book award, says he is privileged to be able to help the organisation – the only UK-wide group specialising in children’s mental wellbeing.
The charity started in 1989 as a coalition of people worried about young people’s mental health. It now has 6,000 members and is growing, a fact that pleases Barbara Herts, chief executive of the organisation. She is particularly proud of the charity’s website, which is aimed directly at children and young people, and of the telephone helpline for parents, which offers a specialist call-back service from a mental healthcare professional.
One of the achievements that most impressed voters for this year’s award, however, was the change to the new Mental Health Act effected by YoungMinds in alliance with other children’s charities.
The act did not originally contain any reference to young people’s needs – a fact that caused a great deal of concern to Herts. “When I travelled around the country,” she says, “I was shocked by the experiences of young people in adult mental health units the way they had nobody to talk to, the way they were falling behind with school work, the way they had been assaulted by fellow patients: it was all really Dickensian.”
YoungMinds’ annual report says: “As a direct result of our lobbying, legislation will ensure that children and young people under 18 who need to be admitted to hospital will be treated in an environment that meets their needs.
“Sixteen and 17-year-olds will be able to consent to, or refuse to be admitted for, voluntary treatment and not have their consent or refusal overridden by a parent.”
According to Herts, it is amazing that such a small charity could force such a U-turn in government legislation. With YoungMinds winning third place in this year’s Most Admired Charity Award, it is clear that many of Britain’s top charity chief executives agree with her.
YoungMinds: sessional worker Naomi Pascoe (rear, above, and far right) working with some of the charity’s clients in Truro, Cornwall; the charity has 6,000 members
‘Mental disorders are hard enough to cope with at any age, but for young people they are especially painful. YoungMinds does wonderful work in helping young people’
Phillip Pullman, children’s author
Copyright Haymarket Business Publications Ltd. Nov 28, 2007
(c) 2007 Third Sector. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.