It’s that time of year again when schools, families and youth workers are all busily preparing for the new school year. It’s an exciting time, filled with new possibilities and many young people can’t wait to get back and see their friends once again and return to the lessons they enjoyed!

But getting back to school can also bring big changes and anxiety. For young people transitioning to a new school or college, it can be particularly tough as they need to navigate the new lessons and expectations of what is often a larger and more complex setting, find their place and make new friends.

This is a topic that comes up a lot in our youth theatre and has been a particular focus of our Stage 2 Ashington Youth Theatre group for our recent Sounding Board project, so we wanted to share some insights we’ve gathered from our young people and staff and some top tips and resources to support young people facing a transition!

Our top tips

1. Do something fun!

Make time to do some fun activities with young people; something enjoyable that helps build a connection through play and a shared experience. We’ve found that it’s so much easier for young people to talk freely and honestly about what they are feeling when they’re absorbed in an activity, whether that be writing, drawing, playing a game, baking or simply going for a walk.

If you’re looking for ideas you can find many free creative activities on our website and YouTube channel:  

Creative Wellbeing Micro-Workshop for Children was created by Mortal Fools Associate Animator Sheryl Jenkins and Associate Writer Danielle Burn. This mini-workshop encourages you to get out and about, take a moment to relax and try out some easy creative activities. Click here to check out the Creative Wellbeing Micro-Workshop for Children
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Our Creativity for Wellbeing activities have been created by guest artist Sofia Barton. They are relaxing, playful, simple and fun, encouraging self-expression. Click here for the Creativity for Wellbeing activities.​

2. Have a few go-to conversation starters up your sleeve:

Every good conversation starts with creating a supportive space where it feels comfortable to share. Our Youth Theatre practitioner Kate recommends having a few go-to questions that you can use to start a conversation about their new school and their feelings around it.

Many young people moving schools are involved in a transition day or induction day so this can be a great place to start. You could ask about what activities they did, whether they met any new teachers, whether they are in any of the same classes as their friends or whether they made any new friends.

And if you’ve got a young person, that struggles to talk about their feelings and experiences, you could create a visual collage to represent their transition day – featuring words, colours, textures, pictures that help represent their experience on that day.
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“By creating a safe and supportive atmosphere and exploring the positives you often find the conversation that follows is much more fruitful!”
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– Kate, Youth Theatre Practitioner

3. Focus on their interests:

Think about what makes them happy, talk to them about their favourite lessons and support young people to explore their interests. You may want to chat about how their new school can help them learn more about their interests and meet like-minded people who are equally passionate.

Lots of high schools have a wide range of after-school activities from fun sports teams to creative art, theatre and film clubs that they may want to look into when they are settled into their new routine. Sometimes young people, just need a little helping hand to go over the threshold to engage with something new, so providing emotional support and a safe space to figure some stuff out can help in enabling that to happen.

“At Mortal Fools we describe our work as “person-centred” recognising that young people, just like us adults, are their own individuals! When having open conversations with young people try not to censor their thoughts and feelings whilst keeping the space safe.”
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-Kate, Youth Theatre Practitioner

4. Validate their feelings:

Moving schools is a big change, and it’s important to let them share the reality of where they are at and try to let go of any preconceived ideas; it’s completely normal to feel a whole range of emotions or conversely to feel totally ready!
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It’s important in these moments, not to use a sweeping statement like “it will be fine” or to jump in and try to make it all better for that young person. Sometimes just holding space, acknowledging the feelings and guiding them through processing their emotions, is the key! Let them know that whatever they are feeling is okay. 

5. Get organised

It’s a good idea to work together with young people to prepare as much as you can before the school year starts, to remove some uncertainty. Creating an action plan with the young person can be so helpful, and identifies tangible steps in “getting ready”, so your young person feels like an active participant in their own life. You might want to try out their new route to school together, look together at any information on the school’s website for new students, create a getting ready for school playlist together and if needed get in touch with the SENDCO at their school to make sure they have the right support in place.

We’ve created a Getting ready for school playlist as a starter for ten.......you can listen to ours here!

Resources that might help:

We have lots of films, resources and activities available on our website which are brilliant for supporting young people through times of change:

Melva is an award-winning mental health intervention that can help young people manage all sorts of changes in their lives through a creative, fun and approachable digital platform. School licenses can be secured for free for many schools in the North East whilst families can access the MELVA interactive game for just £9.99. Click here to find out more about Melva.

My People is a series of short films created by Mortal Fools Ensemble Young Company, following a group of young people navigating the reality of friendship in the modern world. Click here to watch the My People films.

Our Wellbeing Resource was co-created with young people and includes a wide variety of wellbeing and mental health support organisations, friends of Mortal Fools, inspirational influencers, courageous activists and colourful content creators. Click here to access the Wellbeing resource.
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Keep your eyes peeled for our Sounding Board Digital launch this autumn with vibrant films, catchy songs and fun activities, to encourage you to express yourself and make your voice heard. Find out more about Sounding Board by clicking here

 
"if you work through fear you realise you can do anything!"
​- Youth Theatre Member on Sounding Board Digital

Despite the uncertainty, it’s important to remember that moving schools presents some really exciting opportunities; young people often have more freedom, meet new people who they really connect with and develop their interests with a wide range of classes and after-school clubs.

We’ll leave you with these encouraging words from our youth theatre practitioner Kate and her group:

“We explored how transitions feel in our youth theatre groups who described it as both “terrifying and wonderful” at the same time! We reflected on the times we have overcome these changes, including many young people already moving schools, and we want to remind people that “it's scary at first but once you get used to it it's really fun!”

-Kate, Youth Theatre Practitioner

In the last few years demand for our work has continued to grow whilst funding has become more and more difficult to secure, and everything has become so much more expensive!
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We work with thousands of children and young people every year, mostly in the North East and we are reliant on securing grants and fundraising to keep going. Our work engages, enables, and empowers young people through creative projects to grow and evolve, whilst existing as an early intervention; providing safe spaces to scaffold towards good mental health and a positive future. We are firmly committed to making our youth theatre activities, youth projects, digital content and performances free to access or very low-cost to ensure everyone can enjoy them.

It takes a lot of resource to run Mortal Fools young people’s programmes whilst offering high quality meaningful creative experiences to our young people; from hiring experienced staff who share our values to creating high quality, inclusive events, performances and films, to offering pastoral and mental health support to our young people when they need it- it all adds up.

We hate asking for donations at a time when things are so tough, in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis and we know, many in our community are not in a position to donate or fundraise right now (and that’s ok – we totally understand)!

However, we wanted to highlight across this blog post, the ways that you – our wonderful Mortal Fools community, can help us – through donating, fundraising for us, championing our work, advocacy and more! Read on!

Donating directly

Donating directly is one of the easiest and most impactful ways for an individual to support our work as a children’s charity supporting North East young people. You can become a regular donor or make a one-off donation and every little helps.

You can play an important part in the futures of children and young people during an incredibly challenging time, when the demand for our work and support is increasing. By donating or financially supporting Mortal Fools, together we can make a tangible difference and positively impact the lives of young people.

Easy Fundraising

This remarkable tool means every time you shop online you can earn money for Mortal Fools at no extra cost to you. Easyfundraising partners with over 7,000 brands who will donate part of what you spend to a cause of your choice: brands like ADSA, eBay, John Lewis & Partners, Argos, ASOS and Booking.com.

In just a few minutes you can set up an Easy Fundraising account and start fundraising for Mortal Fools. Click here to register – and make sure you select Mortal Fools as your chosen cause to fund raise for.

By downloading the Chrome extension to your browser or the app to your phone, you’ll be surprised by how much you can raise through your regular shopping and their inbuilt donation reminder.
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So far, we’ve raised £840.49- can you help us reach £1000? 

​Fundraising Challenges
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Take on a fundraising challenge for Mortal Fools. This is a fantastic way to raise money by doing something you love, or by setting yourself an ambitious goal and the options are endless…
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• Take on an active challenge such as the Great North Run or a sponsored cycle.
• Bring your friends together with a sponsored quiz, art exhibition or open mic night.
• Get your community involved with a sponsored bake sale.
• Or keep it simple by selling unwanted items on eBay or Vinted and donating the money to us at Mortal Fools.

​To discuss ideas, get in touch with [email protected]. We’ll be more than happy to support you and help you get the word out!

​Through your Workplace
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Businesses are increasingly interested in aligning their organisation's values with those of their customers and staff. This often means supporting charities through funding, promoting and incentivising staff to volunteer.

Many businesses want to hear from employees at all career stages about what matters to them, so why not recommend Mortal Fools to your employer or nominate us through a workplace initiative, such as Charity of the Year?

There are many benefits to investing in Mortal Fools as a local Northumberland-based charity that is helping to tackle the youth mental health crisis, improve access to the arts and develop workplace skills for young people.

And if your workplace only works with charities signed up to a specific scheme – sign post us to the scheme and we can register! Drop [email protected] an email and let’s chat!

Gifting a MELVA license

​MELVA: mental health and wellbeing education through storytelling

Businesses and individuals can sponsor MELVA & give the gift of mental health education through storytelling to primary school settings for academic year 2024/25.

For businesses passionate about ESG and evidencing corporate social responsibility, MELVA is a tangible, measurable and high impact way to demonstrate an investment in children and local communities.

Individual schools can purchase MELVA for £750 per academic year but in the contemporary landscape of ever-changing school budgets, sector cuts, increasing children’s needs and worsening mental health, the cost of the programme can be prohibitive for many settings.

By sponsoring MELVA, businesses can place this effective, high impact mental health resource directly into the hands of the children who need it most.

MELVA is used in over 65 North East schools, which has been made possible through generous corporate sponsorship from the likes of Ryder Architecture and Muckle LLP
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Check out our guide to MELVA for businesses and professionals:

Commissioning our CONNECT training

​CONNECT is our training and professional development programme for organisations, teams, and individuals.

By commissioning CONNECT training you not only receive high-quality training in areas like leadership, communication, presentation skills and resilience, you also help fund our work with young people, as all the income goes directly back into our young people’s programmes!

If you’re connected to a business or organisation – you could commission our training, you could book yourself on to one of our open sessions as an individual or you could download our training brochure from our website and recommend us into your network or to the leadership in your organisation!
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Our CONNECT training uses a unique combination of techniques from actor training, theatre practice, business development theory, and the social sciences to lead participants through a practical training process of identifying personal strengths, increasing knowledge, and
developing new skills. In addition to training – we also run-away days and team development days!

​As an active member of our Mortal Fools community

If you're unable to donate or support us financially, you can support us in a variety of other ways at no cost:
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1. Attend our shows and events – this is such an important, but often overlooked way of supporting us as a charity!
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2. Follow us on social media and share our news updates and digital content as it launches.
   You can catch us across social media:
   
   Click here to find us on Facebook @mortalfoolsUK
   Click here to find us on Instagram @mortalfoolsuk
   Click here to find us on Twitter @mortalfoolsUK
   Click here to find us on LinkedIn @mortalfools
   Click here to find us on YouTube @mortalfools6046
   
   
3. Champion our work and programmes to others in your personal (and professional!) network!
   
   
4. If you spy some funding, a news update or something related to children and young people, that you think might be of interest to Team Mortal Fools – tells us about it or tag us on social media!
   
   
5. On social media and via our mailing list, we often put out requests to vote for us for an award or for funding, just taking a few minutes to vote for us can help us unlock further funding or help raise our profile!

BIG THANK YOU!

We can’t thank our Mortal Fools community enough for championing our work and helping us help our members. We couldn’t do it without you!
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If you’d like to find out more about what your contribution can support, have a look at the inspiring case studies and helpful reports and guides on ‘Our Impact’ page. 
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You can also download our Impact Report too – which gives a great summary of our work across 2023!