Craig Hanlon-Smith shines a light on the HOPE charity project.
The HOPE charity project, aims to be a support and therapeutic opportunity for families and individuals struggling to manage the complexities around mental health challenges and their impact upon all those involved. It is also the main charity this year receiving support from Worthing Pride.
With a young person focus, and with failing mental health disproportionately affecting LGBTQ youth, HOPE seems a fitting partner for this growing Pride event.
The HOPE Charity Project evolved from personal experience by its founder Claire Sparrow. Not able to access any help, support or having anywhere to turn during Claire’s own family’s cry for help, she felt that something was desperately needed for them and all the other thousands of families out there going through a similar experience and the project was born.
Claire said: “Finding your child attempting suicide by finding them hanging in their bedroom is not a sight I wish on any parent to experience. And all because the system failed us as a family”.
In 2016 after months of trying to get support and help for Claire’s 12-year old’s anxiety and depression it took almost an unimaginable tragedy to get professional attention and help. Even then the help offered had the opposite effect to the one needed. Claire’s child was as a last resort admitted to a Mental Health hospital and it was here that she began to appreciate how damaged the system was:
“The standards and lack of sufficiently trained agency staff in these units were a cause for the condition to worsen rather than improve. Eight months of our child being in hospital was more like watching her in a prison. 12 years old, severely depressed, away from her family, being subjected to additional traumatic experiences she should never have had to see or go through. All because there was nowhere for us to turn to get the help and support when she originally needed it”.
It was during this traumatic experience that as a family they became aware of just how many families are struggling behind closed doors with nowhere to turn. Complex mental health cases in young people as young as eight are rising dramatically.
Anxiety, panic attacks, self-harm, depression, eating disorders, gender/body dysphoria to name a few. These can in turn lead to withdrawal, violent outbursts, school refusal, disruption in the home, breakdowns, and now all too regularly, suicide or in the case of Claire’s daughter attempted suicide.
“There wasn’t a place to go that had the therapeutic nurturing impact that’s needed for this serious area of health for our adolescent generation. So we created one”.
The HOPE Charity Project provides a space where those that need to be heard can get some support and have somewhere to go to meet others that understand and will care.
The HOPE project converted a donated shipping container into a support and therapy centre, constructed all from donated and recycled materials and the kindness of skilled tradesmen helping out for free. They connect families in the local community with each other so they know they are not alone and not the only ones struggling with these worries. They work with one another to provide emotional support. “The HOPE Charity Project is the place where these young people can come to meet others with similar worries, fears, sadness, frustration. So again, they too can realise, they are not alone and will not be judged, rejected or ignored. Early Intervention and Prevention is our aim”.
The Hope Charity Project is run by families and the professionals that want to make a difference to help as many as they can and quickly. The need for such initiatives to provide such services to the UK public has never been greater.
“We are always looking out for venues and rural areas for us to be able to expand our services/facilities, to enable us to help more young people and their families covering a greater area. If you could help or would like to get onboard, involved in any way, we would love to hear from you. We need your help & support to keep this going.
“We are so grateful to Worthing Pride for having chosen us as their Charity this year, we are honoured and very proud to have been part of such an important brilliant event.”
To get in touch with Claire and those involved in the project via the website, click here:
Twitter: @hopecharityproj
Instagram: @hope_charity_project
Facebook: HOPE Charity Project
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