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Champion Membership – June 2021 Update

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At the Proton Foundation we’re so thankful that you’ve partnered with us to answer the call to champion children, families and communities. We want to keep you up to date on what we have achieved together over the last three months.

Since establishing the Champion Membership on the 1st March 2021, we’ve been able to welcome 54 Champions to partner with us in our mission to champion children, families and communities.

As Champions, you’ve been more generous than we could have ever imagined. When we met as a team to talk about the Champion membership, our goal was to sign up 100 Champions by 1st June 2021 all contributing £3 each.

As I write this we’re now partnering with 54 Champions, but each Champion on average is giving £8.93 a month. This very simply means that together we’ve been able to smash our goal of 100 Champions donating £3 a month, and we’ve actually got the equivalent of 160 Champions donating £3 per month.

Because of your generosity, together we’ve been able to achieve more than we ever thought we could in our first three months in partnership.

Since March we’ve trained 34 adults from all across Great Britain to become Flourish Project facilitators. These 34 facilitators are a mixture of teachers, youth workers, children’s workers, staff from other charities, volunteers and parents who are now fully equipped to deliver the project to at least 10 children each, giving us the ability to impact at least 340 children and young people.

We’ve added 11 additional Hubs in Aberdeen, South Wales and the Midlands, these are centres that are equipped to go into their local schooling communities to deliver the Flourish Project.

From the Champion memberships inception in March to date, over 200 additional children are currently participating in the Flourish Project. This is something we expect to increase as our additional hubs begin to deploy the project.

We’ve released our Flourish Online ‘pilot’ to a number of schools across the UK giving out 123 licences. It has been well received by students and through this pilot we have had the opportunity to work through some initial teething problems with regards to the platform compatibility with certain school networks.

Thanks to your financial support we are able to pursue a number of solutions. Enabling us to and fully launch Flourish Online after September 2021.

Over the next three months we’re preparing to train more facilitators, deploy Flourish Online fully, add an additional 100 Champion members, have an additional five schools ready to deliver the Flourish Project in September 2021 and begin to roll out a few more new exciting ideas.

We value you and your continued partnership and support. We’re passionate about impacting 100,000 young people’s lives by 2030. We’re determined to continue to champion children, young people, families and communities and be a resource that inspires community transformation. We know this is not possible without your partnership and support, so thank you!

Please consider telling a friend or family member about the Proton Foundation and how they can play a pivotal role as a Champion just like you have.

Phil & the Proton Foundation team.

Try Flourish Online for FREE!

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We launched Flourish Online when we saw the need for our Flourish Project programme to be available online for schools and young people to access. We have now piloted it for the past 8 weeks and have seen some brilliant results:

13 schools have launched Flourish Online pilot

123 children are currently working through the programme

14 teachers have received pilot training

We would love to give you the opportunity to try it out too. There are two ways that you could do this:

  1. If you have a young person between the ages of 10 and 14, then we are happy for them to have a licence.
  2. You may wish for a licence yourself so that you can work through the sessions and see what is involved.

How would this work?
For a young person, sessions need to be completed at weekly intervals (over 8 weeks) and he/she needs to finish the course.

We will provide, free of charge, a license (worth £15) for each person who would like to complete Flourish Online. This will consist of a login, password, and ‘help’ manual. After 8 weeks, your login will be automatically revoked as this is a pilot.

If you are interested, please complete the form below and we will be in contact with more details and your login details.

I’d Like A FREE License

Once you have completed the 8-week course, we would love to use your feedback to develop the programme further and promote Flourish Online on our social media platforms.
We also hope this will give you more insight to promote the programme in your schools, clubs and communities.

‘It’s a Teenage Mental Health Crisis!’

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We all know that many children and young people’s mental wellbeing have deteriorated during the lockdown. The Guardian newspaper had an article on 29.01.21 calling it a ‘teenage mental health crisis‘. One big question is “how can I help?”

A year ago, the Flourish Project was delivered by facilitators going into schools, youth organisation and sports clubs and then – COVID-19. We took the contents of the facilitator-led course, including its video assets and activities, and have created Flourish Online. Working with a skilled IT programmer, we have worked to develop a range of interactions, videos and games, all tailored to young people aged 10-13 years. These make up the 8-week course which is accessed via a secure online portal. We’ve built into the programme assessments of the pupils’ mental wellbeing and happiness at the start and end of the course, so that progress can be measured. All of the activities included within the interactive sessions are aimed at improving mental wellbeing and self-esteem, building resilience and giving tools to young people to help them develop life-skills in these areas. Each week takes about 30-40 minutes. It’s ideal for remote learning or to be used by groups in ICT suites, and it is fun! Schools are under great pressure to provide this type of support for their pupils.

Obviously, the value of running the Flourish Project with Facilitators will not diminish, but moving to an online platform has enabled us to extend our reach to areas where we have no facilitators, given greater flexibility to schools in accessing the course and trained additional school staff in awareness of mental wellbeing. Flourish Online allows us to impact the lives of more children and young people in a shorter time period. As we emerge from lockdown, Flourish Online and the Flourish Project will work together to enhance our resource basis.

Check out a sneak peek of Flourish Online e-Learning Resource

Currently we have a number of schools across the UK taking part in our pilot. Each school receives, for free: 10 licences (for 1 admin and 9 users), an hour’s mental wellbeing awareness training, a user manual and support in using the platform. In return we are looking for teachers to give us feedback and to share their positive experiences on social media. We also have two discussion guides – one suitable for all schools, the other for church maintained schools or Christian groups – which come free with the licences. These materials are for use after completion of each session and include leaders’ notes, handouts for students, practical activities, discussion questions and background information. There is no compulsion for a school or group to use the Discussion Guides but several schools have been keen to do this as they felt it would enable their pupils to get more out of the course. 

We are looking for other schools who would like to pilot Flourish Online this academic year – do you have contacts with schools or teachers who could be invited to join us? 

Download Email Templates

Are you able to help meet some of the costs of developing the online platform now and into the future? We have had to pay for this development from our reserves at present. 

I Can Help Financially

Would you like to sponsor licences for one of your local schools so that more children and young people can benefit from Flourish Online?

I Can Sponsor Licences

Flourish Project E-Learning Expansion

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The pandemic has impacted the project both financially as-well-as halting the impact we have on children’s & family lives. In order to continue to impact communities, the project has needed to adapt its current approach. 

We have approached a couple of Headteachers about moving the programme to a web-based package so that we will continue to see lives and school cultures impacted in a positive way. This could also help the project reach its vision of seeing 100,000 children reached in 10 years’ time more efficiently and quickly.

This web-based package will enable more children to have access to our resource, through interactive games, challenges whilst continuing to give some much-needed tools and strategies. 

This is not a time for the project to pull back as the need in regard to mental wellbeing during this pandemic is great! As of September, it could expand very quickly, however, we need to be prepared to ensure we can meet the need with the resources we have.

We have been working hard during the pandemic to secure some funding to help us build the new e-learning programme, however, we are still £7000 short in meeting our target.

We could really do with your help! We have a projected figure of seeing over 600 children access this e-learning resource this year. That is less than £12 per child to reach our target. Would you be willing to sponsor a child, a group of children, even a full class?

Donate Now

To donate towards our e-learning project, check out the link below. We would love to report before the end of the year that all 600 children have been given access to this resource to help them with their mental health as we continue to navigate this pandemic.

Donate Now

The Flourish Project Update – August 2020

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The pandemic has impacted the project in a massive way by halting the impact we have on children’s & family lives. 

We have had to put a pause on our programmes for all of our schools since March 2020. This has meant that children in their final year in Primary School (Year 6) will no longer be able to complete the course in their school as they will be moving up to secondary school in September. 

We were also about to launch the programme in a new school but this again has been put on pause until schools can resume.

With the pandemic having such a great impact on the education system, we are already expecting lots of changes to come in September. At this stage, schools are unsure whether they will be able to continue Flourish programmes in September or if they will be pushed back until 2021.

With all this change over the past few months, it has forced us to think of new and creative ways that we can continue to impact children and family lives. We are currently looking into building a e-learning programme that will help us to deliver our programme online so children can still access our materials, through fun and interactive online sessions.

We are passionate about continuing to partner with churches who can help to bridge the gap by reaching out to schools and meeting needs in their own local communities, especially at this time where mental wellbeing is being severely impacted. We still have some way to go but we have our goal in mind: reach 100,000 children in the next 10 years.

Partnering with The Flourish Projects

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With the closing of schools across the UK since the end of March, all of our Flourish and Rooted projects have been put on pause until further notice. This has meant that we have had to stop our courses in the middle of a school year when we were building momentum with schools and students. With the future uncertain as too when schools will reopen and the financial implications, this could have on education, the future of Flourish projects is unknown.

During our lockdown, we know that many students will have spent months at home, possibly in unsafe and damaging environments. The need for our courses in schools once they open, in our eyes, will be massive. But this may not be possible if there is no funding for external courses for students.

We are currently reaching out to local churches to see if they would be willing to partner with us. Our desire is to help equip and train volunteers/staff to become facilitators of the project so that the local Church can be a part of the solution in making a difference to young people’s lives and to the community as a whole. This partnership helps bridge the gap between the local Church and local community, developing positive relationships, where Flourish facilitators can be people of influence wherever they are.

We offer a Facilitator Training Day to train any volunteers or staff that might want to become facilitators of The Flourish Project, using it to reach and impact their local school communities by running the 8-week programme.

Once volunteers/staff are trained, we provide you with an annual license giving you access to all the resources you will require to see this project outworked locally.

If this is something your church or organisation may be interested in to support your local community during this difficult time, please let in touch with us and we can give you more details. Check out our Churches Guide with more details about this partnership. Churches Guide Donate Contact Us

Check out what some of our mentors and schools have said about our programmes:

“Partnering with the Flourish Project as a mentor has been an eye-opening experience and deeply rewarding. The topics presented carry great significance in a young person’s development, shaping their future, whilst learning and discovering in an engaging environment. The materials are well-thought-out, easy to get on board with as a mentor, and easy to understand for a young person. From a mentor’s perspective, being able to see the change in these children’s lives has been priceless and a joy to have partnered with.” – Joe Cowley, Rooted Mentor, Life Church EU, Bedworth

“One [parent] said, ‘This has inspired my daughter to audition for a lead role in the Year 6 play. She’d never have done that had she not been part of this project’. She auditioned successfully and did an amazing job! Through the project the girls showed improvement in all 3 areas, however, the most impact was in their mental well-being which is so important for the secondary transition.” – Rachel Ayres, Headteacher, St Mary’s C of E Primary School