Thanks to Movember, a prominent charity dedicated to transforming boys' and men's health, our proposal has been submitted to Neil Gray, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, for consideration. The proposal aims to expand Growing2gether into schools and communities throughout Scotland.
We thank the Scottish government for their support and are now asking them to:
- Commit £1.25m for a 3-year pilot, to reach 1312 young people/1312 children expanding beyond Highland to Dundee, Moray, Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire (50% of the overall cost, which we will match).
- Select Growing2gether as one of the school early interventions they are evaluating as part of a Research contract they are currently procuring. This will give us additional external evidence of our impact beyond our current robust evaluation and help us attract wider funding to support the Scottish government’s agenda from larger funders.
The Scottish government prioritises young people as the future generation who can ensure a Fairer, Greener Scotland. “Our shared drive is to eradicate child poverty, raise attainment for all, close the attainment gap and, crucially, ensure that the focus on children and young people’s wellbeing is given the importance it deserves.” John Swinney, First Minister. Despite this, disadvantaged young people are struggling with their mental health, they are failing at school and not achieving their full potential. This is a massive loss to the Scottish wellbeing economy.
We'd like to thank Neil Gray, for taking our proposal into consideration.
We believe that the solution is giving disadvantaged young people the opportunity to connect to their community, building their skills and mental health, so that they believe in themselves and in their future.
Why we urgently need to support our young people:
- Scotland has increasing child poverty
- Young people are not getting the mental health support they need
- Children who struggle with their mental health were more likely to be excluded from school
- The attainment gap between disadvantaged students/their peers has reached its highest level
The cost of not acting impacts us all: When we improve the lives of our young people, the benefits to families, communities and society are huge. By building the mental health and life skills of young people, we ensure that they attain at school, gain employment and overcome intergenerational poverty. They become positive citizens, avoiding negative behaviour, e.g. drugs, which impacts their health. They don’t truant or engage in anti-social behaviour/crime, which has a devastating effect on their communities.
“I could have gone down a really bad road. Growing2gether and knowing what I want to do has made all the difference.”
- Jan, 14, excluded/with depression.
Growing2gether is well placed to support the Scottish government. By working in partnership with schools, we target young people facing poverty in the most deprived Scottish communities. Our flagship Mentoring Programme is the only intervention in Scotland to use positive psychology and the power of working in a small group to empower secondary students with the skills and confidence to mentor a young person in a local Nursery school. In addition to benefiting secondary and Nursery students and schools, Growing2gether also trains facilitators in each school, making the programme cost-effective and truly sustainable.
"The benefits for our pupils are huge, not just in terms of the importance on their work in the classroom, but in the development of essential skills, including attendance and punctuality, they will need for their future life/work.”
- Head Teacher
