Changemakers: Supporting young people’s mental health and igniting community spirit
Donna Inwood, chair of Leecliffe Big Local, shares how talking therapies, youth groups and drama workshops are helping to improve the mental health of young people in her community.
Bordering London, the Leeming and Aycliffe areas of Borehamwood in Hertfordshire are home to many commuter families. Donna Inwood, chair of Leecliffe Big Local, explains how the group set out to bring together the previously disconnected community, particularly children and young people, and support their mental health.
Donna’s story
It’s the individual stories that mean a lot. Just after the pandemic, we started outdoor activities for children in the park. A young lad wanted to come, but he wasn’t allowed to on his own. He’d never spoken to the boy next door, but he knocked on the door and asked the lad to come with him. They spent the rest of the summer coming to the park and getting involved in activities together.
Before Big Local, it felt like the community was quite disconnected. What we’ve done so successfully is bring people out of their shells and into their community to spend time with each other.
Our Big Local covers the north side of Borehamwood, named the Leeming and Aycliffe areas. We’ve got lovely parks and open spaces, but it’s known as more of a commuter town.
We’re right on the periphery of London and people move here because they’ve been pushed out of the capital by house prices. They’re busy travelling into London every day for work, so they aren’t building a life in the community.
One of the key challenges for Leecliffe Big Local has been to bring people together and ignite community spirit.
Photo: Meadow Park at Leecliffe Big Local
Understanding the needs of the community
When I got involved with Leecliffe Big Local in 2012, my children were settled in school and I wanted to meet new people and make changes in the area for the better.
I first heard about Big Local during a workshop I did with the parent-teacher association I was volunteering for. I was excited that residents were being given the opportunity to spend this money where they saw fit. I wanted to see where the programme could go, and what it could achieve.
To better understand the needs of our community, we conducted one of the biggest public consultations that’s ever been done in the area. It exposed the need for affordable activities for children and young people and issues of loneliness and isolation for older people. This laid the groundwork for our community plan, detailing how we could improve the lives of people in the area.
Just as Leecliffe Big Local started, a popular children’s camp, called Play Rangers, had their funding pulled. Our consultation had shown that activities for children were vital, so we set out to fill this gap. We now work with a number of service providers to fund free term-time and school holiday clubs.
Children can take part in our arts and crafts workshops. They get to create beautiful crafts, including pumpkins at Halloween, and Mother’s Day gifts. Around 16-20 children attend each week and they develop lasting friendships. We also have partners who put on activities that aim to improve children’s physical and emotional wellbeing, like football.
We had a number of older boys hanging around the skate park who we wanted to engage in our activities. One of the providers came down with a full-size football target. The boys came straight over and got involved. Over time, a good rapport has been built with them.
I’m most proud of the work we’ve done to help support the mental health of school children in our area.”
Improving children’s mental health
I’m most proud of the work we’ve done to help support the mental health of school children in our area. We funded an initiative in three local primary schools with Herts School Outreach, a local mental health charity. In small groups, over 100 children have been supported to use talking therapies to improve their mental health and explore their emotional needs.
We’ve also funded an organisation called Flip Theatre to do workshops in five local schools around life skills. They use interactive physical exercises, role play and drama techniques to help children build their self-esteem and teamwork skills. This supports children in year five going into year six, because that can be a big step. It also improves the confidence of children moving on to secondary school.
In 2022, we piloted a Youth Café with Services for Young People, which is part of Hertfordshire County Council. It was for young people aged 11-19 at risk of engaging in antisocial behaviour or being expelled from school. It aimed to give young people something to do and engage them in discussing important topics like knife crime and gangs.
From 2023 to 2024, we also provided over £35,000 in funding for the Friday Night Project at Hertswood Academy. Around 130 young people attend every week. It gives them a safe space to hang out and take part in sporting activities run by professional coaches.
As Leecliffe Big Local draws to an end, we’re confident that the Youth Café will continue, and we’re hoping that the Friday Night Project will be taken on and run by other organisations, too.
Bringing isolated people together
We’d identified issues of isolation and loneliness with older people in our area. In March 2022, we launched a weekly social group called Chatter Tables to bring people together for a cup of tea and a chat in the local church hall.
It started off with a handful of people and now we get 30 to 40 each week. Hot meals are provided using food from supermarkets that’s being thrown away. A partner comes in and does arts and crafts which people really enjoy. We had a group of ladies who met through one of our clubs and now they are firm friends and go on holiday together.
Our engagement work exposed the real needs in our community. We hope that our key activities…will be picked up by other organisations and continue for many years to come.”
Making the community a better place
As our Big Local activities come to an end, I’ll be volunteering with other initiatives, like the BMX track, our biggest legacy project.
The track was something that children told us they really wanted for the area. There’s been challenges with planning permission because our first one expired during COVID-19, but now that we’ve secured permission again, we’re due to start installing the track in early 2025.
We hope that Hertsmere Borough Council will maintain it once our Big Local closes. There’ll be a BMX club running alongside it which I’ll be volunteering for. We’re letting the kids decide the name of the club, the shirt colours and logo so they can take ownership of it.
We’re currently working on an evaluation project to look at the impact we’ve had over the past decade and what issues remain a priority. This will form part of our legacy and we’ll share the findings with the local councils and organisations.
Our engagement work exposed the real needs in our community. We hope that our key activities, like Chatter Tables and our work with children, will be picked up by other organisations and continue for many years to come.
Interview by Elspeth Massey
Discover more inspiring stories from our changemakers series on our Voices page. You can also listen to the latest series of our community power podcast to hear from more people making change happen through Big Local.
