Youth Enquiry Service (YES)
March 2022
Giving young people vital mental health support.
Reaching over 180 young people in Essex.
Working in partnership with the Charlie Watkins Foundation we are pleased to help fund the vital and important work of Colchester & Tendring Youth Enquiry Service (YES).
YES is a local charity in Essex providing a confidential, non-judgemental and informal service for young people aged between 11 and 25 years old within Colchester and Tendring, who are facing difficulties in their lives such as housing problems, homelessness, mental health issues and teenage pregnancy.
We are pleased to be helping two projects run by YES - the School Navigator project and the Go Green project.
School navigator project
A highly effective project enabling young people to get access to support for mental health issues. YES has created two school navigator roles working within 10 schools in North East Essex helping over 180 students (March ‘22). Tragically, there has been several teenage suicides in the local area over the past year so the charity is working extremely hard to intervene at an earlier stage to reach those most at risk.
The project has enabled young people to have someone neutral to talk to about how they are feeling as well as providing the right tools to cope with their challenges.
The school navigators visit the schools once a fortnight to offer face-to-face support to students and where young people are too anxious to attend school, home visits are available. Counselling sessions can be online or via telephone within 24 hours for those most at risk.
The school navigators refer students to their in-house counsellors at YES in Colchester or to a partner charity who can offer short term counselling. Students are also referred to the YES mentoring programme or the Go Green project which offers therapeutic gardening sessions.
"It's so good to have someone I can talk to and not feel judged. I feel listened to and supported in my time of need and Keran is a great listener who understands me."
A student
"When this idea was pitched to us, we knew straight away that we would be able to utilise the School Navigation Project, and the support that Keran has provided has been invaluable. She has made herself available at the drop of a hat, when we had a recent death in the year group, along with her colleague David, and we were able to provide a steady stream of students who needed someone to talk to.
We now have several students that have asked for ongoing sessions, along with more that we are referring, to the point where Keran will now have a waiting list."
A teacher
Go Green project
We are thrilled to have the opportunity to fund staff costs and essential items for the Go Green project - a community garden at YES in Colchester where young people can spend time outside and nurture plants whilst forming friendships. The Go Green project uses horticulture therapy to help reduce depression and anxiety whilst building self esteem especially after the self isolation during the pandemic. The project has been so beneficial that they are now recruiting eight new young people for the Go Green allotment.
Connecting with nature fosters mindfulness, distracts from worries and helps people to stay grounded in times of distress. The young people enjoy growing fruit and veg from seeds and nurturing them till harvest. They cook simple meals from produce grown in the garden allotment and are delighted to have supplied produce for the local food bank.
The garden also provides a tranquil and safe space for those who are on the autism spectrum or have difficulty ‘fitting in’. With the funding, the Go Green leaders are excited to have purchased a large 6m x 3m gazebo, a garden shed and summer house called Charlie’s Chat room where service users can chat with project leaders or simply go and relax.
“GoGreen Community Garden is a constant when life can be stressful and unexpected. The garden is a wonderful opportunity to meet lots of new people, learn about gardening; and where you know you will be embraced for a peaceful two hours potting, weeding, and planting, thank you.”
A student