Mental Health Family Hour
1515. Sam Tyrer
1516. David Cottrell
Sam Tyrer and David Cottrell, from Lancashire, launched ‘Mental Health Family Hour’ at the beginning of lockdown offering free, weekly videos to discuss the mental health challenges being faced by children and families, such as ‘Anxiety’ and ‘Schools Reopening’.
Sam is the founder of the Mental Health for Schools Education Programme ‘Change Talks’ and Prevention and Engagement lead for Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust, and David is a Mental Health First Aider, educator and presenter who operates online under the name Mindset By Dave. Prior to lockdown, Sam and David would go into five schools across Lancashire every half-term and deliver a 6-week Mental Health Education Programme. Since the start of the pandemic, they wanted to continue offering school children the opportunity to talk openly about their wellbeing and how to develop positive mental health, particularly in relation to the pressures of social distancing and isolation. Their weekly show is now being live-streamed to students across the country.
In a personal letter to Sam, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said:
“Thank you for bringing ‘Mental Health Family Hour’ into the homes of pupils and parents across the country.
“Together with David, you are helping to start more conversations on the importance of our mental health and inspiring hundreds of young people to speak openly about the challenges they face, particularly during these difficult times.”
In a personal letter to David, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said:
“Your free, weekly videos covering topics from anxiety and depression, to coping with the reopening of schools following lockdown, have given young people the chance to discuss their wellbeing and furnished them with the tools to help build positive mental health.”
Sam said:
“Myself and Dave are both absolutely delighted to receive this award. When we went into lockdown, we wanted to be proactive and ensure we were offering mental health education to both pupils and their families. Prior to lockdown, we would go into schools and teach young people numerous positive coping strategies as part of the ‘Change Talks’ programme. The feedback we have received from the webinars has been fantastic and we are intending to do more. We would both personally like to say thank you for this award and thank you for the support everyone has given to us.”
David said:
“When we went into lockdown, Sam and I just knew we needed to do something, so we jumped right in with the Mental Health Family Hour. Our aim was to help as many people as possible and even though we fully believed in the material I think we were both surprised as to just how many people it reached. We believe this information is extremely valuable so we hope that the Points of Light Award gives it that extra seal of approval. It is a high personal honour to me, but I am even more excited about it helping the growth of this information that will hopefully help many more people understand and work with their mental health a little better.”