Thank you all for making Youth in Mind magic

In all our work, we place children and young people centre stage – no surprise then that children from West Kidlington Primary School opened the conference this morning. In their live podcast, the pupils told us all about their Mental Health Den and how they care for each other’s mental health. The children’s youthful enthusiasm and joyous presentation were a hard act to follow, but our keynote speakers and workshop leaders did their best!

West Kidlington students did a great job managing their ‘Gratitude wall’ (pictured) and inviting delegates to express thanks for this amazingly rich upskilling opportunity for everyone working with children and young people. If you couldn’t be here in person, check out the Youth in Mind page or feast your eyes on the delegate pack, which gives a strong flavour of the delicious youth sector smorgasbord we were serving up today.

Dr. Sarah Hughes, C.E.O. of Mind, Mina Fazel, Professor of Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Oxford and Paul James, C.E.O. of one of the largest educational trusts in the county all gave delegates a lot of food for thought and there were yet more fascinating speakers and workshop facilitators waiting in the wings.

Dr. Anisa-Ree Moses, an educational and child psychologist dedicating her career to meeting the needs of vulnerable pupils, explored the mental health crisis. And everyone immersed themselves in neurodiversity, child and adolescent mental health services, recovery, psychology and the world of nature play amongst so many more topics!

Encouragingly, the cross-sector networking session was majorly over-subscribed – it’s so good to see everyone seizing this unique chance to meet and learn from cross-sector peers. This is the only event in Oxfordshire to link up Thames Valley Police, NHS and school staff, youth workers, in fact, anyone working with children and young people and against a back-drop of budget constraints and service cuts, it was heartwarming to see delegates seizing the day and the epic opportunity it provides for cross-sector creative thinking and problem solving.