We’re excited to share Brandon Centre’s new 2024 brochure!
Take a look to see all our new services and the incredible impact we’ve made over the past year. We’re proud of the progress we’ve achieved in supporting young people’s mental health, as well as providing valuable support to parents through our parent groups.
A huge thank you to Design Portfolio for their continued generosity in donating their time and resources to help bring this brochure to life. We’re truly grateful for your support!
Have a look and learn more about the work we’re doing!
Winter 2023 – 2024 newsletter
To view the ‘Winter newsletter – 2023 – 2024
A walk to remember
We donned our anoraks and snack-filled backpacks for a special sponsored team walk around the beautiful Chilterns countryside.
Planned and led by our volunteer Kieran Seale, we walked 10km to raise funds for our essential mental health services to support young people. Kieran said ‘it was a real honour to lead the walk. It was great to see so many people chatting and networking. Walking is so good for team building and it felt really appropriate to be doing an activity which is so good for physical and mental health”.
Our 2 hour ramble took us over rolling hills and through fresh green woodland, where we spotted wild deer, red kites and golden brown hawks perched in trees. Georgia, our mental health coordinator, brought along her dog Oscar, who became our mini mascot with his infectious happy energy that kept us going.
22 members of the team rose to the challenge, including some brand new staff members who have just joined Brandon Centre! It was great to get to know them as we all chatted for 2 hours.
The English countryside was the perfect place for our first fundraising challenge and to take time out to recognise the significance of National Suicide Prevention Day, which was intentionally the same day as our walk. Being out in nature on the 10th of September was a real reminder of how precious our mental health is, and that expansive views and fresh air can be really transformative for our minds.
Kieran (rather cleverly) ended our trek at The Queens Head for a couple of celebratory pints and plenty of Thai veggie spring rolls, finishing our fundraiser feeling full, satisfied and happy.
“We are deeply grateful and appreciative of everyone’s incredible support and generosity in donating to our first team fundraising walk. We managed to raise £3,800. All the funding raised is helping support our very special and important charity to provide vital services for young people.”
Emma Sainsbury,
Head of Business Development and Partnerships
“It was so nice to get out of the city and spend time with colleagues in nature. It was somehow relaxing and invigorating at the same time! A real treat and a great way to raise money for our wonderful charity.”
Ellie Brookhouse,
BC-SIT Lead
“Our 10k walk in the Chilterns was a great chance for us to bond with colleagues while engaging in a mindful wellbeing activity. Walking in nature is incredibly beneficial for our mental health and I would encourage anyone to get out into the countryside for a stroll or a hike.”
Pavlos Rossolymos,
Clinical Director
Psychotherapy Annual Report – 2022 / 2023
To view the ‘Psychotherapy Annual Report – 2022-2023
Spring/Summer 2023 Newsletter
As a charity focusing on adolescent mental health and wellbeing, our tagline is that we’re ‘Here for Young People’. Of course, it’s much more than just a tagline. It’s about being present in a way that answers young people’s needs and helps them find solutions that work.
We know we can’t just take a guess at what those needs are, or develop services in a silo. So, some of the most important work we do is consulting and working with young people to make sure our services are valuable, effective, and accessible to everyone, especially those who are traditionally more difficult to reach.
A wonderful development in our young people’s involvement work has been an increasing focus on supporting their personal development. Often, when someone has experienced significant life challenges and had space to reflect on what’s important, they can then continue to grow going forwards.
One of our aims is to give young people a better understanding of what is within their control and what isn’t. By supporting them to release anything that is out of their control and to focus on their strengths and potential, we help them identify and embrace new and exciting opportunities.
Our Young Ambassador programme is a great example of this. It offers a supportive, innovative, and creative space for young people to volunteer on a chosen project and, at the same time, develop their leadership skills. Brandon Centre provides a safe space to help them work out who they are, what they want and need in life, and time to think and plan their next steps.
Time and time again our Young Ambassadors have shown how amazing their journeys continue to be into further studies and employment. Many of them come back to help us support the next generation of Young Ambassadors. We also provide important training opportunities across the charity for young management trainees and placements in our counselling services and family and parenting programmes for students training to qualify as clinical psychologists and psychotherapists.
I hope you enjoy reading about how we’re supporting the next generation of leaders as well as our other exciting Brandon Centre news, including how to help us win a Tesco Community Grant and a wonderful interview with our new young patron, comedian Grace Campbell.
Wishing you all a reflective and inspiring summer.
Download the full newletter
Brandon Centre – Runner up for Tesco Community Grant 2023
Brandon Centre recently took part in the Tesco Community Grant Scheme in Camden stores. Our local community voted for our project. We were runner up and kindly received £1,000 from Tesco.
This additional funding helps us reduce our counselling and psychotherapy waiting times further enabling us to see more young people in a more timely way to prevent longer term issues.
We know we make a difference to young people’s lives and to our local Camden communities, so we are extremely thankful to everyone who voted for Brandon Centre in stores.
#hereforyoungpeople
Grace Campbell fundraiser raises over £9000!
On the evening of 9th November, Brandon Centre’s very own Young Patron Grace Campbell treated a fantastic audience to a night of fun-filled comedy and fundraising.
We are so blessed to have Grace on our team and we’re excited to tell you about our amazing fundraising achievement on the night.
Thank you to every single person who showed up and supported our cause, as well as those who could not make the event but who still donated.
£9000 is a considerable amount for our charity and every penny will be put towards supporting even more young people through our mental health and wellbeing services in Camden and Islington
#hereforyoungpeople
A celebration of Sexual Health at Brandon Centre
53 years of compassionate trailblazing
We’ve always felt privileged to be able to continue the innovative work pioneered by our founder, Dr. Faith Spicer. In 1969 she combined contraceptive advice with counselling and psychotherapy to provide a specialist service that put young people’s needs at its heart.
In an average month in 2022, Brandon Centre saw over 200 young people for contraception provision and advice, including free condoms, pills, patches, coils and implants, pregnancy testing & counselling, and STI diagnosis and treatment.
Julia Brown – International Women’s Day
Julia Brown
Why is International Women’s Day important to you?
This is such an important day for me. So many women and girls continue to face barriers to fulfil their potential. In these unprecedented times, young women face unique challenges in relation to their confidence, self-esteem, wellbeing and mental health. In the first three months of 2021, young women were more likely to experience some form of depression than any other group. The need to support young women has never been greater.
I grew up in London, studying and feeling truly at home in a variety of multi-cultural and inclusive school communities. At the current challenging time, I appreciate more than ever the freedom, encouragement and support I have always had access to develop my leadership skills, values and most importantly support myself and others to grow. For me it was critical to be able to participate actively and from a young age in Brownies, Girl Guides, DofE, sports teams, youth clubs and as one of the first girls in the Combined Cadet Force. I was also welcomed into many charities as a young volunteer.
I trained and worked with many women as a nurse, midwife, health visitor supporting so many vulnerable young girls and women in East London and Haringey. And undertaking an MSc in Public Health at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, sponsored by the Department of Health Women’s Unit, was a key turning point for me, learning so much from participants from developing countries. Learning, supporting and being with culturally diverse girls, women and their communities continues to be central to my life.
How does your organisation support girls, young girls and women in the community?
Brandon Centre is such a special charity, based in Camden. We have been providing services to young people for over 53 years. In the late 1960s, our founder Dr Faith Spicer became concerned by the number of young women struggling with stigma and shame of pre-marital sex and pregnancy. She established a new model of service for adolescents, years ahead of its time in the way it combined contraceptive advice with counselling and psychotherapy. Today we continue to review, grow, and develop our young people’s adolescent services to ensure we best meet our current young people’s needs. We support young girls and women in the community in many ways. These are just a few examples:
Arsenal Girls Kicks Programme: Arsenal in the Community has been part of the national Kicks Programme since 2006, with the aim of keeping young people away from anti-social behaviour, drugs and crime. In 2019 the team secured additional funding from the London Marathon Charitable Trust and Islington Giving to extend their Girls programme, in collaboration with Brandon Centre and other community organisations, with the aim of engaging females between the ages of 8 and 17. Osira Imoedemhe, is Brandon Centre’s sports psychologist on the programme and says “Performance and wellbeing are very much interlinked. So we look at the person as a whole and try to support them, not just at football, but in all areas of their life: at school, at home and with friends in their lives at that time as well as structured sessions on important topics: Purposeful Practice, Resilience, Mindfulness, Growth Mindset, Communication, and Awareness.”
‘BWell’ Reaching Communities Coaching Programme: we run the ‘BWell’ coaching service to support young people self-manage their wellbeing funded by the National Lottery Community Fund. This new service runs alongside our existing psychotherapy, counselling, and sexual health services to enable young people get support at the first sign of issues impacting their wellbeing. This is an important as we continue to see increasing numbers of high-risk young people with unsupported mental health needs. I am so proud of our newly recruited experienced and inclusive coaches, the majority being intergenerational women coming from diverse and bringing varied inspiring and lived experiences.
This builds on a pilot funded by Camden Young Foundation. Initial benefits included better sleep hygiene, improved self-esteem, greater emotional awareness and regulation and more confidence with communication and relationships.
John Lyons Counselling Service: This service funded by John Lyons, provides a ‘light touch’ counselling offer for vulnerable young people aged 12-25 years living in Camden who would not think, or be confident, to self-refer for emotional support and for whom statutory support is not reaching or appropriate. This helps prevent young peoples’ emotional issues deteriorating. This is an integrated service that sits between our sexual health and mental health service. We offer immediate emotional and motivational support, increase the young person’s likelihood of engaging in conversations of a wellbeing/mental health context in future and provide a bridge to/and from more in-depth therapy if needed.
In January 2022 we started to see an increasing number of young women coming to Brandon Centre who had been sexually assaulted. This new service has been instrumental in supporting many of these and other young women facing trauma, anxiety, and other challenges in a timely, sensitive and supportive way.
MindfulSteps: This is a new inclusive pilot programme funded by London Youth and commenced in February 2022. The programme involves a weekly series of innovative and enjoyable walks for anyone between the ages of 16-24 years living, studying or working in London. The sessions are created led by Brandon Centre with young people to support young people’s mental health, wellbeing, increased exercise and holistic selfcare. The walking is planned on guided routes around our special Kentish Town Community, highlighting points of interest with a special LGBTQIA+ interest along the way.
The sessions include gentle exercise, outside in open spaces which help to reduce anxiety, deepen connections with nature, support more reflective and coaching conversations. I have been participating in this pilot and have been so enjoying meeting our young women and trans young people. We continue to learn so much together through our developing and engaging inclusive conversations.
Emma Saunders – International Women’s Day
Emma Saunders
Why is International Women’s Day important to you?
My Dad was my hero – he always taught me that I could achieve anything that I put my mind to, he encouraged me and by believing in me, he helped me to believe in, and value myself. He was also a very just man, believing in equity and respect for all and was a huge supporter of women’s rights and International Women’s Day.
Like my Dad, International Women’s Day is important to me because it provides an opportunity to celebrate girls and women and what they can, and have achieved. It is a day to recognise the difference that women and girls are making all over the world, as leaders in government and business and also in their local communities as we continue to strive for equity, respect and opportunity for all women.
How does your organisation support girls, young girls, and women in the community?
Brandon Centre has been supporting young people for over 50 years and we continue to put young people at the heart of everything we do. We provide a welcoming and safe space, at the heart of the community, for girls and young women to access sexual health and mental health services to meet their individual needs.
What do you think has been your impact last year supporting girls and young girls in Camden?
Our new Young Peoples Leadership Board was formed at the end of 2021, following the development and facilitation of engagement work with young people over the previous 12 months. The Board has provided a platform for young people to share their ideas and views about the work we do at Brandon Centre and to work with us to co-design and co-develop our services. It is also a space for young people to discuss issues that are affecting them locally and to influence the development of new services that can support girls and young women locally in Camden.
The members of the Board are currently all young women, who have been instrumental in the design of the Board, ensuring the voices of young women in Camden continue to be heard.
Arsenal Girls Kicks Programme back on the pitch after lockdown
Arsenal in the Community has been running the national Kicks Programmes (run by 92 professional football clubs across the UK) since 2006, with the aim of keeping young people away from anti-social behaviour, drugs, and crime.
In 2019 the team secured additional funding from the London Marathon Charitable Trust and Islington Giving to extend their Girls programme, in collaboration with Brandon Centre and other community organisations, with the aim of engaging females between the ages of 8 and 17.
We spoke to Osiro Imoedemhe, Brandon Centre’s Sports Psychologist on the programme, Jack Ironside, Senior Manager for Social Inclusion at Arsenal in the Community, and Pavlos Rossolymos, Brandon Centre’s Head of Mental Health, about launching the new initiative during lockdown, and how it’s playing an important part in improving local girls’ lives.
Q: How did the Girls Kicks programme come about?
Jack: “There’s quite a lot of research that shows that a particular set of issues stop girls from taking part in sport, particularly in their teenage years. These include body changes, puberty, and increased levels of anxiety. We found that there didn’t seem to be many sports-based interventions in the community which aimed to tackle all those issues together.
There are so many factors that contribute to a young person making positive changes. So we were keen to build relationships and develop partnerships with experts, like Brandon Centre, that would help us build a programme that tackles those issues in a meaningful way.
We officially launched in February 2021. Some of Arsenal’s top women’s players and around 100 girls joined us at the Arsenal Hub, which is the home of Arsenal in the Community, next to the Emirates.
But then lockdown hit, and we had to re-think everything.”
Q: How did you carry on during lockdown?
Pavlos: “We moved the programme to online workshops. We tried to focus more on wellbeing and activities that kept us connected with those girls for whom Arsenal is a bit of a lifeline, a safe haven.”
Osiro: “Performance and wellbeing are very much interlinked. So, we look at the person as a whole and try to support them, not just in football, but in all areas of their life; at school, at home, with friends. So that was our focus during lockdown.”
Jack: “It turned out to be a good relationship builder. Now we’ve got a foundation, and a partnership with our community organisations that’s really quite strong.”
Q: What does the programme look like now you can meet face to face again?
Jack: “The Girls Kicks team is a mix of experienced professionals, like Osiro, or Becks, our professional coach. Then we have one or two participants who have come through the programme as assistants and young leaders. It’s a really nice dynamic, and makes for a really credible program, that’s safe and well delivered.”
Osiro: “There are structured sessions where we cover important topics, but then if someone’s having a tough week, or even a good week, and they want to have a one-to-one chat with me, I’m there for them.
The structured sessions will cover 6 key themes that we believe every young person should receive training on. They are: Purposeful practice, Resilience, Mindfulness, Growth Mindset, Communication, and Awareness.
We’ll look at how each of these relates to playing football, as well as to other aspects of their life, like being intentional and purposeful on the pitch but also when studying for school, how to be aware of your surroundings on the pitch, but also when staying safe as young women out walking down the street.
They’re important skills that will hopefully help them flourish and thrive in whatever they choose to do. We’re making sure that as young women, they feel supported, and that they have the tools they need to succeed.
Pavlos: “I think the beautiful thing about the programme is that the wellbeing element is weaved in so well. It’s part of the football practice, but it builds on the girls’ resilience and wellbeing in a really integrated way. Osiro is there, kicking a ball around with them, but also available to talk to them privately about anything that’s bothering them.”
Q: What benefits have you seen so far?
Osiro: “It’s absolutely invaluable. The girls are getting so much out of it. Even from the five-minute chat that I have with them before they play a game, you can see the immediate difference in their performance, because they’re thinking about being purposeful, or giving feedback, or communicating.
It’s also allowed the girls to be more open to talking about things that aren’t going well in life, things that they want to work on. Some girls are very happy to ask for a chat, so I think there’s a reduction in stigma as well.
This project is so special because it bridges the gap between wellbeing and performance. I think it’s a very safe space for them. They’re free to just be themselves.
Even the friendship groups that are being created are special, with girls from completely different walks of life becoming best friends.”
Q: What hopes do you have for the programme in the future?
Jack: “It’s quite a long-term vision that we have for the Girls programme. Our existing programmes have a strong pathway that helps young people move from being a participant to being a volunteer and playing an active role in the community, to becoming a leader.
We want that for the Girls programme too. We’re working on providing a pathway that gives the girls the same opportunities to develop careers in football or sport.
If it looks like a young person might have an interest in coaching, we ask if they want to come along to help out with the younger ones. That often gets the ball rolling, and more often than not, they really enjoy it. It’s empowering and a confidence boost for them.
Then if they go on to become a coach, it sends a really positive message to the younger members and peers in the community, that ‘if they can do it, I can do it’.
It’s also important that we keep a sense of community. Under the London United banner, which brings together all the professional London clubs, we’ve purposely tried to build programmes so that, no matter where you live in London, there’s that doorstep provision. And the idea is that you then develop a really strong sense of community for those girls.
We want it to be more about the person than the player. It’s really the social outcomes that we’re interested in.”
When is the Girls Kicks Programme on?
Friday evenings and Saturday mornings at The Arsenal Hub and other locations (Covid dependent).
The programme is supported by funding from the Premier League Charitable Fund, The London Marathon Charitable Trust and Islington Giving.
For more information, contact: rjones@arsenal.co.uk at Arsenal
Other articles from the Brandon Bulletin…
Brandon Centre joins Open House London 2021
On Saturday September 4th Brandon Centre opened its doors and garden to the public as part of the Open House London Festival 2021.
Our team of staff and Young Ambassadors welcomed over 50 visitors interested in finding out more about the history of our building and the welcoming environment it allows us to provide for the young people in our community.
One of this year’s themes at Open House London was the link between architecture and wellbeing, promoting mental health with mindful architecture, and visits to undiscovered places.
“What was lovely, and a bit different, about the visits, was that instead of talking about the architecture of the building we talked about what goes on inside the building,” said Julia, Brandon Centre CEO.
“We talked about the importance of community-based services that help young people deal with their mental and sexual health and how, with our support, they can go on to become responsible, fulfilled, and healthy young adults.”
Our beautiful house dates back to the Georgian period. It was donated by the well-known philanthropist, Brandon Cadbury, after being so impressed by our founder, Faith Spicer’s, ground breaking work with adolescents in 1960s London. As a thank you, we named the charity after him in 1984.
We still enjoy a close relationship with the Cadbury family through The Oakdale Trust who very generously support our work, and Brandon’s daughter, Olivia Tatton-Brown, is our very special Patron.
Read more about our 52-year story here: