We have provided a three year funding support programme with the St Albans based youth counselling charity, Youth Talk. Presently, the Society is halfway through the partnership and are already seeing the benefits they provide towards young people’s mental health.
Funding from our Grassroots Endowment Fund has already financed the first Youth Talk counselling sessions which will number 100 per year for young people in the St Albans district who are struggling with mental health.
Youth Talk was founded by a local GP in 1997 after she realised there was a need for a safe place where young people could come for counselling and support. Since then, over 2800 young 
people have used the service and currently they are able to offer more than 60 counselling sessions each week. All their counsellors are qualified therapists and highly experienced in working with young people.
Speaking about the important role the charity plays in the local community, Chief Executive of Youth Talk, David Barker said, “Growing up in today’s complex and challenging world is not always easy. And for a whole variety of reasons, young people can find themselves feeling mentally unwell in ways they’d never expected - through anxiety, depression, family issues, identity and a whole lot more. Youth Talk provides an open door and a safe, confidential place for young people to talk. Yet we can only continue our vital work with the support of the local community and we are eternally grateful and delighted to be working with the team at the Harpenden Building Society”.
Caring for the well-being of young people in our community is important to us. Our Grassroots Endowment Fund was set up to help our local communities. With reports of mental health affecting one in four of the UK population, we were keen to channel funds towards paid for counselling sessions that will help some of the young people within our communities to manage and improve their well-being.
Our funding agreement between us and Youth Talk has been facilitated and is being managed by Hertfordshire Community Foundation (HCF), an independent charity that aims to encourage local philanthropy to provide funding and support for small charities, voluntary groups and individuals in Hertfordshire.
Working closely with both us and Youth Talk, HCF identified youth mental health as being a key concern for both organisations during their Hertfordshire Matters research, which led to HCF matching us as funding partners. The funding agreement has been hailed by the foundation as a fantastic example of how local businesses are able to help local charities and urges other local businesses to consider the ways in which they can help Hertfordshire to thrive.
Photos courtesy of Youth Talk.