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Tag: The Flourish Project

The Impact We Want To See

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The Impact We Want To See!

2022 was filled with some inspiring stories of the impact that the Flourish Project made in the lives of children, teachers, parents and communities.

“Children have absolutely loved every session. I have really noticed confidence and how they carry themselves at school and how they communicate with each other. A lot of the activities have also been taken to school assemblies. Children are using all the flourish vocabulary they have picked up from the sessions in normal classes. It has been fantastic. I can see the improvement and see that the kids can see it too. Celebration is done at the school assembly and we have invited their parents. The cards of ‘Awesomeness’ have spread like absolute wildfire, and we even got the children to do a session for the governors. We would want every child in the year to go through the project.” – Kris Wharton, Deputy Head at Cwmffrwdoer Primary School

Flourish Project

For 2023 we have big goals we would like to achieve, to train more schools and churches, influence more lives through developing key partnerships, and help local communities Flourish and to see this impact spread across thousands of lives.
Thank you for all your continuous support in 2022!
We have already trained 11 schools in 2023, and are excited to see what the rest of the year will bring! 

Your friends,

Hannah Williams and The Proton Foundation Team❤️

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Benefact Trust ‘Brighter Lives’ Grant

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Benefact Trust Logo

17th August 2022

PRESS RELEASE

We have been awarded the Brighter Lives Grant!

We are thrilled to have been awarded the Brighter Lives grant from Benefact Trust.

We exist to be a resource inspiring community transformation! To date, we have seen over 2000 young
people complete the Flourish Project, over 500 complete Flourish Online, over 55 Champions support the Flourish Project and 150 facilitators trained in delivering the Flourish Project.

‘We are living in times where young people are struggling in silence, many with issues that affect their mental and emotional wellbeing. We all need to work towards finding long-term preventative solutions that can be easily integrated into school cultures at an early age, this will help combat the ever-growing issue around mental ill health.

I believe The Flourish Project is one solution that can help young people start to form healthy habits and positive self-talk, which in turn builds resilience. The impact that this project has seen in improving mental wellbeing & self-esteem is significant and their research over the last few years has demonstrated that this could be a game-changer.’

– Professor Jonathan Warren (previous CEO of Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust).

This grant will help us to partner with new churches and Christian organisations to achieve our goal of impacting young people, to truly change their lives and help improve their mental and emotional well-being.

Brighter days are ahead!

About The Proton Foundation

We are passionate about enabling individuals, families, and communities to impact 100,000 young people over the next 10 years to grow and thrive in a healthy way.

Currently, our primary projects under the umbrella of the Proton Foundation are The Flourish Project and Flourish Online. We are continually supported by our Champions through The Champion Membership, who have the opportunity to give as little as £3 per month to help our work.

As a way to give back to those who have supported us and to invest in other projects similar to ours, we have launched The Mustard Seed Fund – a financial gift to those who are running or setting up projects that support our charitable objectives.

Do you want to get involved? Contact us today by emailing info@theflourishproject.org.

Follow Proton Foundation on Facebook and Instagram. For more information, visit their Website.

About Benefact Trust

Benefact Trust is one of the UK’s largest grant-making charities. The Trust’s grants further its charitable objectives of promoting the Christian faith and other charitable causes. Its funds are largely derived from ownership of the Benefact Group – a specialist financial services organisation. Since its foundation in 1972, The Trust has awarded over £235m in grants – £100m in the last 5 years. Applications are welcomed from all parts of the UK and Ireland, particularly from areas of social and economic deprivation.

Benefact Trust funds projects that tackle homelessness, poverty and social exclusion. The repair, restoration and wider community use of churches and cathedrals of all denominations is also supported.

Follow Benefact Trust on Facebook and Twitter, or visit our Website for more information.

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Back to School

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Back to School

Can you believe that we are already four weeks into the new school year?  

We wanted to share with you the exciting news that we have restarted Flourish face-to-face courses and are launching Flourish Online for this term, and would love to keep you updated with the impact it is having.  

• Since the beginning of the academic year, five ‘church’ hubs have been running 11 face-to-face projects in six different schools, working alongside 85 young people.  

• Between now and Christmas, 26 schools are going to be launching Flourish Online with approximately 400 young people.  

• We have three new hubs being trained in September, and they will be running their first face-to-face cohorts very soon after.  

• We have delivered one hour awareness training to 32 Senco’s and teaching assistants to ensure Flourish Online is deployed successfully.  


Thank you to Restore Collective, a hub running the Flourish Project in a school, for the lovely photos!

Before the schools broke up for the summer holidays, a couple of the young people let us know the impact the project had on their lives.

“I feel I can cope better if I feel down.”  

“It’s changed how I look at myself, and I am starting to focus on the good things about me.”  

This is why we do what we do!  

This would not be possible without your continued support. We value your partnership with the Flourish Project. If you would be interested in running the Flourish Project in your community, do get in touch for more information.

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Edenstone Foundation Pledges Support To The Flourish Project

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Edenstone Foundation Pledges Support To The Flourish Project

“There’s an increasing awareness of mental health and the importance of developing a healthy mindset, particularly in the wake of the pandemic.”

We are so excited to share the news that the Edenstone Foundation has partnered with the Proton Foundation, and has very kindly pledged a £5,000 grant to The Flourish Project. This means that FIVE schools across South Wales will benefit from The Flourish Project to help develop mental and emotional wellbeing. 

The funding will be shared between Alway Primary School, Ponthir Church in Wales School, Tredegar Park Primary School in Newport, Libanus Primary School and Blackwood Primary School in Blackwood.

The Flourish Project is a programme we designed to equip young people with the tools to develop healthy self-esteem, mental and emotional well-being.

Phill Mann, the Flourish Project Manager, explained:

“We launched the Flourish Programme in 2017 and have already helped around 1,000 young people develop a healthy self-esteem, mental and emotional well-being. There’s an increasing awareness of mental health and the importance of developing a healthy mindset, particularly in the wake of the pandemic.

With the support of the Edenstone Foundation we will be able to reach more young people, helping them learn to create helpful thinking pattern and ‘growth’ mindsets, and to begin to recognise and set goals for the future.”

The Flourish Programme has been designed to target 9 to 16 year-olds, and it usually runs over eight one-hour sessions. In these sessions, we cover topics including exploring how beliefs are formed, the impact of social media on mental health, healthy online habits, and the importance of setting goals.

We have reported increases of between 24 and 31 per cent in happiness, mental wellbeing and self-esteem by those who have taken part in the programme.

The Edenstone Foundation funding for the project is has come from the Magor-based Edenstone Group’s two housing brands – Edenstone Homes and Bluebell Homes, in which they receive a proportion of the proceeds of every home sold to support good causes.

Chris Edge, from the Edenstone Foundation, said: “We recognise that children and young people need help and support as they try to figure out who they are and where they fit with their peers, while also completing their schoolwork and preparing themselves for the future. The challenges of the last 18 months have made this even more apparent and it has never been more importance to safeguard the future health of our children.

By partnering with the Proton Foundation, we’ll be supporting the delivery of the Flourish Programme in five schools. This will hopefully have a long-term impact on the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people enabling them to flourish into adulthood.”

To the Edenstone Foundation, we want to thank you for your generosity to the Flourish Project! We are so excited to see the impact that your support will have on the children and young people’s self-esteem, mental and emotional well-being.

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Connecting Crossgates

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Connecting Crossgates

It’s people like Karen that we love to partner with, as they are wanting to be part of the solution within their own communities to see change, to see transformation and to see young people ‘flourish’.

Connecting Crossgates is a charity who have a heart to see young people be equipped to reach their full potential. 

As part of this, they recruit volunteers to go into local schools to sit and read with young people who are struggling with their literacy.

Halfway through 2020, Karen who leads the charity started to realise that the need was so much deeper than just the surface level need of young people being able to read. She understood that ‘happy children thrive and unhappy children didn’t thrive’, so she wanted to change the script, to see the young people that they were working alongside begin to thrive.

So, Karen approached us as a project and we gave her the resource to run a Flourish project in her local school.  Here is what the Principal from this school said in a their newsletter,

“The journey of every young person was unique. They worked so well as individuals and as part of a team. Every single young person truly flourished, remembering each themed week and the key messages. The students were so happy and proud receiving their medals and certificates in the final week, and we are so proud of every single student who attended and engaged in The Flourish Project.“

We at Proton Foundation want to celebrate community leads who see a need and decide to step out and fill the gap within their local communities. It’s people like Karen that we love to partner with, as they are wanting to be part of the solution within their own communities… to see change, to see transformation and to see young people ‘flourish’.