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The NGY Show
We are the next gen youths. Hi, my name is Martin. Welcome back to the NGY show on unity Radio 92.8 FM with me along with Chloe, Bradley and kailyn. Coming up now we are going to be talking to James Harper, the CEO of the beacon counselling, beacon counselling supports mental health and well being of young people so that they can feel better about themselves, have more confidence and hopefully get more out of life. beacon counselling runs a youth engagement programme called SOS. And we’re going to be discussing today what this programme involves. Hey, James, thank you for joining us on the NGY show. How you doing today?

James Harper
Thanks very much. I am doing very well thanks.

The NGY Show
Brilliant and could you describe what ignited your desire to help young people with their mental health and well being?

James Harper
Yeah, basically, it was going back to my own growing up. When I was a teenager, I had mental health problems myself, there was a while where I felt really anxious, and I was depressed. And there was a while when I actually felt suicidal as well. And back in the, you know, dim and distant past, as it was then, in South Wales, there was, you know, there wasn’t really much awareness of mental health, mental problems, schools were really geared up to kind of, you know, spot the signs, if you like, really, I didn’t know what I was going through at that time. And I felt really kind of alone and isolated with it, but didn’t just didn’t really understand what was happening to me. Like as a, as an adult getting involved in that kind of, you know, developing and delivering mental health services, kind of just dawned on me one day is like, this is why Actually, it’s kind of a really, you know, I really didn’t upgrade type thing. I thought, fundamentally, I just don’t want any any of you to kind of feel this kind of alone, as isolated as it did back then. And although I know that’s still true today, it’s kind of the fact that there are, you know, more people doing stuff to improve mental health and raise awareness. It’s just, it’s just kind of yet. It’s kind of that’s kind of why I got into it.

The NGY Show
Yeah, and you’re one of the people improving it, as well. So could you comment on the increasing suffering of mental health issues within young people since lockdown began. What advice could you give to us as we come back into school?

James Harper
Yeah, this is definitely something that is fallen loads, and those of you have children, young people’s minds. I think the lockdown the last 12 months has been unbelievable, you know, everyone has been through so much. And we know that the amount of isolation is kind of really gone up. The amount of uncertainty about what’s going to be happening is kind of going up over the last year. And all of those things kind of really undermine feeling good, and having good mental health. So you kind of in terms of coming back and back in school, there’s still a lot of uncertainty around kind of, will it be the same things? How are my friendships going to be? What is actually school going to be like, for the next few months, and even going into kind of the rest of the year? So there are there is still a lot of uncertainty. But I think the key thing is to try and keep keep hold of, I guess their mind is that role, you know, was each of us have their own journey through the last 12 months is that actually, we’ve all been through it. Everyone, at some point, has had a really bad time. But everyone at some point has struggled. And although it might seem like you know, most, if not everyone else, at times these kind of coping? Well, they’re doing all right. And you might feel like, you know, is that actually, you know, we’ve all kind of been there. And most of us are still struggling, even though it might not look like that on the surface. And then I guess Finally, it’s remembering that, you know, it’s that there are people in our lives. You don’t really want to be there for us, you might be friends, might be professionals in our lives, in school or wherever. And, you know, whoever’s in our family, as well. There are people there. But who would want to know if you’re struggling? and want to help? as well?

The NGY Show
Yeah, for sure. I definitely think reaching out to people’s important. Thank you.
As we said in the intro, we know you’ve run a project called SOS. Could you please tell us a little bit more about that project and the work?

James Harper
It does definitely, so the SOS project, SOS stands for stamp out stigma. And the reason that we set it up is it realised that whilst we’re delivering quite a lot of support in the communities is actually we’re just doing what we kind of know sort of works, but you really want to hear from young people how well it works, and what improvements you need to make, essentially what young people to help us develop our services to make them even more effective. And then we thought well, beyond that, it’s not only about kind of getting ourselves to really want to empower young people to be able to influence what happens in their local communities for mental health as well. So connecting with the likes of the NHS, and the local council, and other organisations help to kind of share with them, what needs to happen for children, young people and prove that their support, as it were. So we did, over the last three years, we’ve had kind of different projects every year, focusing on a slightly different thing. And then at the wall, what we’ve got is, obviously, we can’t we can’t meet we haven’t been able to meet. So we’ve asked two young people of all ages really to provide us with a kind of creative response to what their experience has been like the last four months. So you know, you can focus on Well, how, you know, for some, it would be kind of what things have helped me to stay well. And for others, it will be well, what was was it just being like going through all this brothers again, it will be I’ve had a bad time at times, but the things that have helped me to kind of get well again. And then finally, we’ll probably hear from young people about well, what’s missing? What do you know, need? What do you need this year, to kind of get better support to help people to get to where they want to be really. So it can be, you know, you could draw something and paint something, write something, you can sing something, you perform something, you know, all fallbacks kind of allowed. And welcome, really so. So yeah, this year, that’s the focus. And we want to gather all of those messages, highlight them and showcase them in an exhibition later on in the year. And then use the messages that we get from young people to tell those in authority. Well, actually, this is what’s needed, though. This is what you need to do to support young people better. So that’s, that’s what we do.

The NGY Show
That’s amazing. I think it’s particularly good to me that you listen to young people a lot as, like teenagers, I feel like we’re not taken seriously a lot of the time. So that’s really good. Thank you. So speaking about charity work. Projects like SOS, why is charity work so important to you and your organisation?

James Harper
I think, for me, I remember, as a teenager, I have always been passionate about, you know, kind of making a difference. And wanting the world to, I guess, wanting the world to be a better place. Really nice, quite big thing, I guess. And, you know, when I first kind of got involved with the church sector, what I realised was that I was part of a sector where you’ve got 10s of 1000s, hundreds of 1000s of people, we’re all kind of focused on that thing of trying to make the world a better place, trying to make it you know, for each single person at a time or the local communities or internationally as well. But, you know, for me, I really connected with actually there are so many people in society, who really want to make a difference. So when that’s, you know, that’s why I got involved in working with charities. And I know through conversations with people peeking over the years is that they really connect with what beacon is about. They connect with our mission of improving mental health, well being and resilience. And, you know, so many of them really affect the fact that actually we don’t only work with adults, because so much that’s focused on children, young people as well. Because they realise that well, you know, we need to help adults as well, because we all experienced mental health problems at some point. But actually, if we can have children, young people as and when it’s happening, then that’s gonna be so much better for the future.

The NGY Show
That’s really interesting and really insightful. Thank you. So I’m gonna hand it over to Bradley. Hi, can you describe the most rewarding moment had a job?

James Harper
Yeah, I was conflicted about this. And I thought, you know, I feel really, really lucky, guys, because the job that I’ve got is, there are so many great people. And so many great things happened. They’ve been projects that we’ve done around, you know, kind of helping adults who are at risk of suicide, helping young people who are not in education, employment or training. People who’ve been sexually exploited and worked in partnerships, there’s going to help to talk to that. There are loads of great things have been really, really kind of tough to be a part of. But I think one of the things was one of the things was about two years ago, yep. 2019. We passed the SLS project. What myself and a few of our colleagues kind of worked with was helping a group of young people said, Well, we don’t just want to tell you what we don’t just want to tell the local authority, we want to want a bigger platform. And so with them, we worked to put on an event, which was at the Etihad Conference Centre, which is like something to do with this city growth, I already fought the football. It was kind of a big deal, but but we got, I think it was nearly 200 people from across Greater Manchester. So each of the 10 boroughs are represented. And we put together like a panel of different people. So obviously, in America, it’s mostly got a guy called john rose, who at the time is in charge of all of health and social care, graves manage estate, and we purchased things. We have three young people on the panel who all had their own experiences of mental problems. And it was the whole, you know, the whole Chrome’s opportunity to kind of really kind of ask the questions that mattered and to challenge people who are right at the top with the most kind of authority, and the biggest motivation for us to say, actually, you know, this is what we’re concerned about, this is what needs to be different. And they were there, to be fair to them, you know, they agreed to take part in that event. So I think, you know, for credit, but they, you know, it was such a fantastic way to kind of empower young people to just talk directly to the people who have the most influence really, so yeah, that that was a really, really rewarding.

The NGY Show
It’s good that you help people with mental health, do you want to help others to succeed.

James Harper
Yeah, you know, I kind of, you know, that’s my hope is that, you know, by doing, hopefully, the way not just with, like services to support you through this thing is that, you know, we can help make what happens in the future better. In fact,

The NGY Show
If our listeners want to get involved with projects, where could they go to get more information from.

James Harper
so the easiest way is to get in touch. And we have, you know, typically, honestly, I’m not on social media, but I do know, that people work speaking, that are actually good at this stuff that we do on social media. And so I know we have namesti promo code for Facebook, and Twitter, and I think one of them as well. But I know that you know, the information will be shared so that we can do that. But you can you know, any other person can get in touch using those are we also have a specific email for the SOS project as well, which is SOS at beacon hyphen counselling.org. UK, and I guess I’ll make sure that we get that information shared with you as well.

James Harper is the Chief Executive of Beacon Counselling, and has worked in the charity sector since 2004, firstly at Family Contact Line then taking up the lead at Beacon in 2006.  During his time at Beacon it has won several national awards and increased its impact from supporting 250 people a year to 2,500 children, young people, and adults across Stockport and Greater Manchester.

James is passionate about tackling social injustice, and the ability the sector has to make a difference to the lives of individuals, families, communities and wider society.  He is particularly interested in mental health, well-being, and resilience, and how this applies to people, communities, organisations and systems.

James is also a board member of Sector 3 (a third sector organisation supporting charities and community groups across Stockport), and a member of the advisory board for Newman Health & Well Being.  He is married with 2 children and loves walking, running, cycling and climbing.
For more info visit:
https://www.beacon-counselling.org.uk