“I love Youth In Mind! It’s like Glastonbury for the youth mental health sector in Oxfordshire. Jamie Douglas, Neurodiversity Lead, Response“
Youth in Mind 2024: Safe Spaces – Emotional, Physical, and Digital
This sold-out event equipped delegates with the tools and knowledge everyone needs to support young people’s mental health and wellbeing. Delivered by Oxfordshire Youth, the county’s leading youth charity and Oxfordshire Mind, Youth in Mind is a transformative professional development opportunity jam-packed with practical takeaways and also it’s a lot of fun.
Young people face significant challenges in finding safe spaces in the online and offline worlds. This means we must grab the chance to engage in cross-sector problem solving to continue meeting their diverse and complex needs.
Check out the delegate pack to see what you missed. We delved into strategies to promote emotional resilience, explored the creation of safe online and physical environments, and addressed the complexities of the digital world in relation to youth wellbeing. Youth in Mind has the power to ignite new ways of thinking and address complex problems facing services and their users by uniting Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, Thames Valley Police, The University of Oxford, local authorities, school staff, voluntary sector organisations, plus national mental health and youth work organisations.
We’ll see you at Youth In Mind 2025!
Keynote speakers from left to right – Mina Fazel, Kadra Abdinasir, Kay Rufai, Peter Leonard
Kay Rufai, artist, mental health researcher and founder of the S.M.I.L.E-ing Boys Project explored how art challenges stereotypes and creates safe spaces with and for black boys in the education, mental health and criminal justice systems. Mina Fazel, Professor of Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Oxford shared how she strives to bridge the gap between her groundbreaking research and real-world impact to ensure that effective interventions reach those in need, and are transforming the landscape of child mental health services. Kadra Abdinasir, leads policy and influencing work at the Centre for Mental Health, a charity dedicated to tackling mental health inequalities. She brought over ten years’ experience in youth policy, research, and engagement to her role and Youth in Mind. Peter Leonard, Chief Executive of The Centre for Emotional Health, was helping us all to create emotionally healthy spaces for children.
We had a dazzling array of stimulating workshops lined up this year. Each and every one was delivered by experts in their field, and delegates told us they were inspirational, informative and – most importantly – directly applicable to their work with children and young people.
These are delivered in lecture format, enabling us to deepen our knowledge of emerging and important issues. In Focus workshops for 2024 are:
Practical sessions with more space to explore:
Youth in Mind is a fantastic opportunity to meet new people working in your field, deepen existing connections and discover new ways of working together. We build in facilitated networking opportunities to support you and your organisation to be better connected to your peers.
The theme of our networking session in 2024 is: Building bridges for health, linking the NHS and voluntary sector through networking and it will be a V.C.S.E. Alliance Networking session entitled ‘Strengthening cross-sector partnerships’.
Please contact info@youthinmind.org with any enquiries.
Youth in Mind Guide to children’s mental health services in OxfordshireA comprehensive directory of local and national organisations supporting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
“Superb! It hugely benefits professionals and practitioners.”
The Youth in Mind Guide is a comprehensive directory of local and national organisations supporting children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing that is republished every two years. Click on the front cover below to open up a treasure trove of services.
Youth sector manager‘Superb! This directory is an absolute gem and I take it with me everywhere. The Youth in Mind Guide is a completely invaluable resource.’