Online Course: Supporting a Child Struggling with Mental Health

Are you a parent or carer looking for help and guidance to support your young person struggling with mental health? 

Perhaps you've reached out to your doctor, CAMHs, or a healthcare professional to support your child's recovery but have a long wait for your child's first CAMHS appointment. You may have been told that your child's case isn't critical enough for CAMHS support.  Or you simply feel there is more you could do.

We have provided support to thousands of parents via our free, online course ‘The Horizon Plan’, which teaches our clinical process to support young people struggling with mental health. The Horizon Plan is recommended by NHS trusts and NHS Recovery Colleges across the UK, including Devon Partnership NHS Trust, and currently has over 900 parents and carers enrolled. Our online course is made up of 5 free-to-access modules, with Module 1 live and Module 2 being released shortly.

By providing preventative support for families at the earliest possible stage, we can help prevent the escalation of mental health issues and support parents to help young people recover from mental health issues and reach their full potential, within the family unit.

By providing support for families where the young person has more developed mental health challenges, we can equip parents/carers to play an effective supportive role during long waits for or alongside professional support. 

Our clinical intervention has four key components:

1) Psychoeducation & skills training: guiding parents/carers to support the recovery of a young person suffering with their mental health using our evidence-based clinical intervention.

2) Parental self-care: teaching parents how to care for their own mental and emotional health to best support their child.

 3) Navigating statutory support: Coaching parents/carers on how to access the support offered by schools, the NHS and non-statutory organisations.

4) Peer support: “A peer-support model is highly powerful in this area. Lived experience often speaks with more authority to people in crisis (and more generally suffering) than professional input, which can at times feel impersonal, invalidating, conflicted and can even be experienced as harmful in some instances.” - Dr D Starley.

About Us

The Youth Mental Health Foundation CIC is a Devon-based not-for-profit organisation working with young people, families, and schools to address the crisis in youth mental health. We are addressing an urgent need for preventative education to build resilience in children, alongside early intervention strategies to prevent young people's mental health challenges from escalating. 

We are directly supporting families whose young people are in crisis with their mental health. We work with communities across Devon and have a growing national reach. The impact of our work is more resilient individuals who are less likely to experience severe mental health challenges, and more families who are empowered and equipped to support their child’s recovery from mental health struggles. 

All our projects are developed by our leadership team of parents and young people with lived experience and mental health professionals, including an NHS psychotherapist, a Chartered Psychologist and a Wellcome Trust Neuroscientist. 

Origin Story

In 2015, Claire and Joel Sutton discovered their 11-year-old daughter Jade was suffering from anxiety, depression, an eating disorder and had been self-harming daily for two years. They recognised that alongside the professional help Jade was receiving, there was a valuable contribution they as parents could make to support Jade’s recovery and dedicated themselves to this role.

Today, Jade is a happy, healthy, and confident 19-year-old young woman. Jade, her parents, a systemic family therapist, a psychologist, a neuroscientist and a learning architect developed a clinical intervention called the Horizon Plan (HP), to guide other parents and carers to support a child suffering with mental health. 

Our Principles:

We recognise:

1) The earlier a young person suffering with mental health receives support the better. The absence of early-stage support often results in a deterioration of their condition and risks life-long issues

2) The extremely limited support available to young people in crisis

3) The key role that parents/carers can play in supporting a young person's mental health with appropriate coaching and support.