London Grilling: Dan Charlish, Director of Stop.Breathe.Think chats to Delancey Real Estate
Hi Dan, please introduce yourself to our readers!
Hi there, my name’s Dan Charlish. I’ve always been a charity boy. I began my career at Christian Aid, an international NGO, working in the Africa department. After seven years I moved on to do more local development focused around South London, based in a church in Stockwell where we launched the St. Johns Community development programme. This included a youth programme, senior citizens programme and a family programme all running out of one big church, which was great fun and a real hub in the community.
From there, we launched a new charity which we called Snow Camp. The basis of Snow Camp is to use snow sports to support inner city young people, to help them make positive changes in their lives and gain new opportunities and qualifications - but with snow sports at the core. It has grown to become a national charity working in London, the Midlands, the North West and Scotland and that has been my full-time job for the last 20 years. That is until Covid when we were unable to do Snow Camp programmes. So, rather than furlough all the staff, we tried to do something useful and formed a new charity called Stop.Breathe.Think.
Please tell us all about the Stop.Breathe.Think initiative.
We launched the SBT initiative during the early months of Covid when everybody was locked down. Lots of our young people were really struggling in high rise flats in inner city areas, being flung back into difficult family situations and other challenges and one of the things we kept hearing from them is that they just wanted to talk to somebody. We were able to help with that, as we had some councillors already working for Snow Camp before we launched SBT. So we started linking young people up with them and very quickly they were full, so we recruited some more councillors and it became a very positive way to provide some support to young people at a very difficult time.
The next step was to talk to our funders and get some funding put aside to allow us to develop the project properly. That meant developing a website and systems and making sure that everything ran really smoothly so that young people could get access to this support whenever they needed it - and by September 2020 the SBT charity was born.
In short, a service where young people can simply go to the SBT website, be connected online to a counsellor within 48 hours via Zoom or any platform they choose, explain what’s going on, and then be matched with a longer-term councillor who can be based anywhere in the country, for up to six further online sessions, with additional support in between these sessions if needed, to help them with whatever they’re going through. That might be anxiety, depression, anger, suicidal thoughts, self-harm - anything that young people might be struggling with at this time which they want to talk to somebody about. We wanted to provide that service to them quickly as there was nothing else out there like it and the alternative was sitting on a waiting list for nine months to a year to speak to someone at the NHS, or needing to get a referral or overcome all sorts of other challenges to get any support. We wanted to provide support to people at the point when they really needed it which was quickly, there and then, not in a year’s time when things could be an awful lot worse with their mental health.
This is what drove the service forward, to try and provide this access to online counselling to young people that needed it in a timely manner who couldn’t afford counselling themselves. SBT grew from there.
How does SBT impact local communities?
Young people are obviously a big part of any community and during the pandemic they were affected worse than most in terms of lockdowns and the impact this had on them. So I think it’s so important that programmes exist to support their needs and their mental health. Particularly coming out of this period of lockdown. That’s what’s great about SBT; we can provide this support right now, to get young people the help they need to deal with their mental health challenges. What’s even more important for the community is that this doesn’t just support the young person themselves but also their whole family. Their parents, their carers, those around them. So everybody benefits from young people being able to access this support in a timely manner.
Can you tell us about your most recent project in Elephant and Castle?
The new SBT initiative in E&C is particularly exciting as it’s the first time we’ve rolled out the programme in a targeted way, in a specific area. We’re doing this in partnership with Delancey who are already working extensively in the area, developing the new town centre, so it works for them too. They can provide an invaluable service like SBT as part of their work for the community and the young people in E&C.
What are you most proud of in your work so far with SBT?
We’ve all lived through a particularly difficult time with the pandemic and it was especially challenging for young people so I’m proud that we were able to pivot as a charity and refocus on developing a project designed to support to young people at this difficult time. It is rewarding for the charity to have started something that was useful and positive and most of all, that young people used and found support through. The fact that SBT now exists and can continue to help young people over the coming years is something we’re proud of as a team and is one positive thing that has come out of such a difficult period.
What are your long-term goals for the charity?
Our long term goal for the charity is to grow it over time, we want to help as many young people as possible and SBT makes getting support much more accessible. Young people across the country who can’t afford to get counselling support can now access the support that they need quickly. It’s an ambitious target to role out something like this nationally, but it’s so needed and the online model works. We’ve proven that to date. It’s really a matter of scaling it now and with the right partners, supporters, funders and backing we can make sure this service grows to enable young people from up and down the country to access the support they need. It will be hugely rewarding if we can make this happen over the coming years.
How can people get involved in the STB initiative?
As mentioned, if we’re going to grow this charity to the size we hope then we’re going to need a lot of supporters, partners and companies to get behind the project. So if anybody out there would like to find out more and would like to support us or become a partner we would love to hear from them and please do get in touch. And, of course, if any young person would like to use the service then please go to stopbreathethink.org.uk and find the support that you need. If you can’t afford counselling yourself then this is a service that will enable you to get that support when you need it.
Please describe your perfect day out in London and any of your favourite places to hang out?
When we were founding our first charity in London in 2003, it was based on Clapham Road in Stockwell so very close to Clapham Common and, in those years, I would very regularly take my lunch and walk up to Clapham Common and just enjoy everything that it has to offer. I’ve always loved Clapham Common. A coffee and lunch on a sunny day in Clapham Common is hard to beat.
Your Support Counts
Stop.Breathe.Think have announced that they are marking Mental Health Awareness Week (15th – 19th May) by launching their first Stop.Breathe.Think. ‘Be Out There’ campaign.
They are inviting as many schools and youth organisations as possible to help raise awareness and funds by taking activities outside – maybe walking a mile together or having a giant picnic at lunchtime. Money raised will go towards enabling young people to access their counselling package, and get help when they need it the most.
There is still a huge stigma around mental health issues and we feel it’s really important to use this week to increase awareness not just of the struggles that many of us go through, but also of some of the small things that can increase wellbeing and make us feel better.
Read more about their fantastic campaign here - Be Out There
To make a donation to Stop. Breathe.Think charity please use the link below:
