Huddersfield community organisation achieves diploma in trauma and mental health

Following a turbulent and challenging year for young people and after six months of studying, community organisation Conscious Youth have achieved a diploma in “Trauma and Mental Health Informed Schools and Communities”¹.

With more young people than ever using community services for support, Conscious Youth, including the organisation’s two directors Serena Johnson and Sophie Simpson, decided to undertake the trauma and mental health training to support those that need it most. 

Over two-thirds of people (67%) believe that the pandemic will have a long term impact on their mental health². This statistic includes young people who have been bereaved or undergone traumatic experiences during the past 18 months of the outbreak. With this in mind, the trauma and mental health training staff at Conscious Youth have received will enable the organisation to employ support strategies to help young people cope with their mental health struggles. 

Alongside this, the community organisation will now be able to relate to children and young people in ways that alleviate their suffering, support their learning and make them feel cared for and appreciated. As well as this, the organisation can now effectively respond to children in distress/ stress states in ways that help them emotionally regulate, feel psychologically safe, and develop the capacity to handle stress well over time. 

Following the accreditation, Conscious Youth will now begin to offer 1-2-1 therapy sessions, play therapy sessions, and other interventions to support young people in understanding the trauma they have experienced. 

Sophie Simpson, Co-Founder and CEO of Conscious Youth, said:

“As a community organisation, it was really important for us to take the steps in broadening our knowledge of mental health and trauma to support and understand our young people in the best way possible. With this training, we will now be able to support young people who have gone through specific adverse childhood experiences, and we will be able to provide them with tools and techniques to work through feelings of anger and traumatic loss. 

“As well as the organisation being trauma-informed, I’ve also received a recommendation from the course director to be able to apply for the Diploma in Counselling Teenagers. Counselling is something I’m extremely passionate about, and being able to provide counselling sessions to young people will help me to enable teenagers to successfully process painful life experiences and make informed decisions about key aspects of their lives”.