Help us to make a difference in more young people lives, in particular those most impacted by the effects of the pandemic and lockdown, by donating today to support those who need it most.
Lockdown Level Up a new programme produced by The Stress Management Society with Support from Recovery to equip teens with the tools to increase their resilience to cope with the challenges of today and prepare for an uncertain future.
On Friday the 20th of November The Stress Management Society hosted our first Lockdown Level Up workshop for a group of 16 to 18 year olds from The Bright Centre. The interactive session was designed to promote self-awareness and resilience, empowering the group from South East London to increase their resilience to the ever increasing stresses and demands of modern life. An opportunity to have an experiential, practical and engaging session to learn though play and exploration.
The session was delivered by Neil Shah, founder of The Stress Management Society, and co-founder of the Recovery Campaign mixing theoretical concepts with practical activities. The session made use of the fantastic facilities that were generously provided by Hannah Lanel of The Fore gym, in Kings Cross London. Happy Face Pizza cooked delicious food in preparation for the event, meaning that everyone left with full bellies and happy hearts. A massive thanks to Damien Deghan of Data Science talent whose generous donation made the session possible.
Many young people fall through the cracks of the support provided by the government and this has only been exacerbated by the impact and restrictions in place for Covid-19 (Politics.co.uk, 2020). This situation was further highlighted by research completed as part of The Recovery Campaign, triggering a feeling of responsibility and urgency amongst concerned members. This event was only possible because of the efforts and donations of time, money and resources by the wonderful people who are passionate about making a difference.
The Bright Centres are focussed on supporting and integrating students who felt disillusioned, disenfranchised and discluded from mainstream education. Attendees of the session face challenging socioeconomic factors through no fault of their own, increasing their vulnerability for many things including significant mental health concerns. The session was designed by The Stress Management Society team to ensure that it was fully tailored to those attending. The content and challenges gave them a positive, fun experience while offering long term benefits such as the knowledge and guidance to help them prepare for any upcoming challenges.
We’re thrilled to announce that the session was a great success and received excellent feedback from all those involved. There were smiles all around and it was truly heart-warming to see the impact that the session had on these teenagers.
The support we have received allows us to run a further 3 sessions for the youths at The Bright Centre, but we want to do more. The restrictions in place due to COVID-19 limits the number of participants allowed to attend the sessions. We want to host more events in the future and increase the frequency to ensure that we can help as many of these youths as possible.
To hear directly from a beneficiary, this wonderful young lady is currently excluded from school as the school deem she’s too much for them. Shortly she will have a meeting to determine whether she will be allowed back to school or will be permanently excluded. She has been bullied and has struggled with her Mental Health. She has described this year as the most stressful one of her life and support staff from the centre have described her as being disengaged and withdrawn. She mentioned that in most of her life she is told what NOT to do – ‘Don’t touch that, don’t make noise, don’t ask questions, don’t be silly etc’. She stated that this as the first time in years she felt she was encouraged to challenge, ask questions, play and be curious’. The system is constantly reinforcing that she has no power, she can’t change things and she should just be quiet and do what she’s told, even though that isn’t working for her. We provided her with a safe space – to be herself, to express, to engage and to explore. In two hours her energy transformed. Here she is describing her experience, watching this video will show you what an impact we have had on her life:
Update: We’re thrilled to announce that she has since had a meeting with the school that went fantastically well. They were incredibly impressed by her change in attitude and will be reintegrating her into the school.
We’re asking for the support and donations for our Lockdown Level Up programme. As with this event, we not only received monetary support, we have also been gifted a fantastic venue and tasty food to feed the kids before they go home. All of the support that we receive will go to towards this campaign and helping those most in need. The more support we receive the more kids lives that we can positively impact!
We thank you in advance for any support you can provide!
