Hands for Youth CIC celebrates after receiving £722 in National Lottery funding

Hands for Youth CIC based in South Shields is celebrating today after being awarded £722 in funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK. Hands for Youth CIC will use their funding to implement their summer programme: Mighty Minds, Mighty Minds is an upcoming summer event for young people aged 8-12 years within South Tyneside to teach them how to regulate their emotions through grounding techniques. Did you know that over 800 young people in South Tyneside have been diagnosed with a mental health disorder? Hands for Youth aim to target these numbers by providing services such as Mighty Minds to young children to show them how to understand and manage the feelings they are experiencing. Mighty Minds will help children use your senses through techniques such as breathing exercises, standing barefoot on sand and being outdoors. This works by interrupting the automatic response to anxiety allowing the body to feel safe. This new National Lottery funding will support up to 30 children who will each receive the knowledge they need in order to create positive calming techniques which they can use in their daily lives. These techniques are research-based and are age appropriate. Children attending the programme will receive a free emotions workbook which they will take home to work through with their grown-ups. Mighty Minds will take place every Friday from August 4th to September 1st, 2023, and will take place from 4PM-5PM. Parents are welcome to leave their child(ren) and pick up at 5PM. It will take place at St Marks and St Cuthbert's Church, Quarry Lane, NE34 7NP. The Mighty Minds programme is FREE to all children aged 8-12 years. Thanks to National Lottery players, this grant means that we can begin targeting the taboo around child mental health and encourage young people to recognise their emotions and talk about how they’re feeling without being ashamed. At Hands for Youth, we believe that every child deserves the right to understand their emotions and this project will make a big difference to people’s lives.