Northorpe Hall Child & Family Trust is a small mental health charity based in West Yorkshire. Founded in 1963, the Trust initially provided residential support over the weekend for boys at risk of going into care or going into the prison system in Leeds. Now, they provide therapeutic counselling, mentoring, workshops and volunteering opportunities for young people up to the age of 25. Not only that, but the charity also offers support to parents and carers who might need help themselves while looking after a young person who is struggling with mental health issues.
In 2021 I found out that I have a condition called Crohn’s Disease, an unpredictable and often debilitating disorder where your immune system attacks your gut. Unsurprisingly for someone who was sixteen at the time, it was sort of mind-breaking for me. I knew quite quickly I’d need support in the coming months as I learned how to come to terms with something that would be life-altering - something that I knew would and did affect my mental health. So when I discovered Northorpe Hall, I was excited and immediately understood the importance of the wonderful work they do. They offer support to young people like me in similar situations and they do it with compassion and kindness. I was keen to get this chance to highlight them. The services they provide are vital.
I discovered Northorpe Hall via a social media post promoting a charity event to be held at nearby Eastthorpe Hall. The health and wellbeing centre were celebrating their first anniversary by throwing a fundraising party to support the Trust. The event would feature special guest Jodie Whittaker, and as someone who is fortunate enough to have recently gotten the chance to talk with Jodie about issues the Trust encounters daily, I was keen to connect with them to hear about their perspective.
I was unbelievably lucky for the opportunity to meet Jodie Whittaker in 2023. It was all thanks to the charity Rays of Sunshine who grant wishes to seriously ill children aged 3-18 across the UK. Jodie and I spoke about many things, but one of my strongest memories from that day was when we touched on the topic of the internet and its effects. While we both agreed that, yes, it could have its moments like bringing people together, it could also have a strong negative impact, especially on younger people. As someone who is a part of the first generation to have always had the internet at our fingertips in an instant, I’ve seen both these effects first hand. It’s affected myself and many others around me, and it will always stay with me. And since the Trust deals with young people and their mental health, I thought it would be interesting to find out how they approach this topic, especially in this increasingly digital age.
I caught up with Justine Haworth, Chair of the Board of Trustees for Northorpe Hall, via email. She described how the charity puts a lot of care into understanding the best ways to benefit young people who have been affected by the internet's negative impact, and what Northrope Hall’s future holds.
Amber Smith: Co-editor of Read The Room, Alfie, sat down with Thomas and Victoria Barraclough from Eastthorpe Hall for a lovely chat last week. Raising funds and awareness for your trust is really important to them and we hope we can help as much as we can with this feature too.
Justine Haworth: The event was on Friday and it was A-MAZ-ING. Jodie was gorgeous in every possible way. Such a lovely host, so generous with her time and has agreed to stay in touch with the charity so we hope to do something again with her before the end of the year.
AS: What was it that drew you to working with the trust? Was it something you’d always considered doing?
Justine: Long story short, my daughter was helped by the Trust when she was 12 years old. The support and care they showed us as a family was incredible and without a doubt helped my daughter get well again.
A couple of years ago, I stopped working for a big corporate and wanted to continue working, however I wanted a break from the high pressure environment. Having been in employment for 26 years, I had a lot of skills to offer and decided that I'd like to volunteer. Serendipitously, Northorpe Hall were advertising for Trustees a short while later, and I jumped at the chance. Two years later I am now the Chair of the Board of Trustees and volunteer two days a week. There's no other charity I would want to work for, and I'm so grateful the universe made it happen!
AS: The Trust turned sixty recently, which is an amazing achievement. Even with such a fantastic history, the need for things like regular donations and fundraising is very important. What are the best ways people can support the trust?
Justine: The best way someone could support us is by making a regular donation. Having a regular source of income provides real stability for organisations like us. So the more people that sign up to donate £10 or £20, the better.
AS: I’d now love to talk to you about how the internet impacts young people’s mental health. How would you say the continuing growth of the internet, alongside social media, has impacted how the Trust helps youth in need of support?
Justine: It's a fact that the demand for help with emotional wellbeing and mental health is growing and around 50% of this demand is anxiety based. We think social media feeds this by portraying unrealistic lifestyles and/or body images. It's human nature to want to 'fit in' so the content on social media can result in people feeling isolated and affect their self esteem. Beyond this, there's the bullying and the fact that it's difficult to switch it off or distance yourself from it because so many people live their lives via their smartphones.
AS: As someone who personally has struggled with mental health problems due to my disability, how would you say the Trust helps young people and families that fall under the same category as I do?
Justine: The Trust helps a lot of children, young people and families who struggle with their mental health because of a disability. In addition to individual support, we offer group sessions where people in similar circumstances can connect and share experiences or offer peer support. We provide tailored workshops and counselling for parents or carers. This is a hugely important component of our work because research tells us time and time again that, if parents are emotionally resilient, they are better placed to help their children. We also go into schools and ensure that people in your situation are appropriately supported. The thing I love about our charity is that we 100% advocate for the person in front of us. We listen, we empathise and we take action to help make that person's life better over the long term.
AS: Do you find that the internet has caused an influx of mental health cases in younger people, especially in young teens, and if so why do you think this is?
Justine: Yes I do and I think the answer is above - so much of what is portrayed across social media and the internet is unrealistic and unattainable. If you are constantly feeling that you're not thin enough, pretty enough, rich enough, popular enough, that is going to mess with your self esteem and confidence. The problem is when you are young, how do you even know the difference?
AS: Volunteering with teens myself, sometimes it can be difficult to actually ask them how they’re doing and extend that branch to help them. Would you say this is also an issue that the Trust encounters? How have they adapted, especially with social media’s rise with younger people?
Justine: Like anyone, teenagers need to feel psychologically safe before they'll engage, and that's before you even start to layer on the complexities of hormones, peer pressure, access to online information, interpersonal skills! So it's hard and requires a lot of patience and creativity. We've found that what matters the most to teenagers with regards to ongoing engagement is to listen to them and to demonstrate that you've heard them. We run a programme at the Trust called Youth Voice which brings together young people who have been helped by the Trust. They get involved in designing our services, help with interviews and make sure the content on our website is ok. They also get involved in specific projects - a recent one was a photography project where they took photos of things that represented 'what a good day looks like for me' and met each week to discuss why they'd chosen a particular photo to showcase that week. It ended with a photo exhibition at the Trust and then a tour to schools in the area! Some of them even did a speech at the exhibition. It was so inspirational to see the camaraderie in the group and to see them light up as they talked about the project.
AS: Finally, what does the future look like for Northorpe Hall?
Justine: Not going to lie, it's been a tough few months for the charity. In March we lost 85% of our funding and 60% of our workforce. We're now a significantly smaller charity, and our focus in the short term is to re-group and decide what work we want to do next. One area of interest is school based avoidance and we have some exciting ideas in development right now. Obviously much of this work will be oriented towards emotional wellbeing and mental health, and we want to provide support for children, young people and families who are facing the most difficulty or disadvantage. This means we'll support fewer people, but our hope is that the impact will be much bigger.
Find out more about the support Northorpe Hall provides and consider donating now!
Words and interview: Amber Smith (she/her)
Read our feature on Eastthorpe Hall here.
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