The Matthew Hackney Foundation

After the heart-breaking loss of our son of Matthew we wanted to make sure something positive is born from our tradegy. We are very proud to provide counselling for children and young people who wouldn’t normally have a chance to access help. We work with friendly, approachable, fully qualified counsellors to ensure help is available within familiar surroundings as soon as possible. We know that if we can help early we can help to stop mental health problems becoming more serious. This also impacts positively with their future mental wellbeing, giving them the ability to cope if they experience difficulties. Approximately 1 in 10 children have a diagnosable mental health disorder, which means that 3 children in every classroom need our help. 75% of children with a diagnosable mental health condition do not have access to the help they need. A quarter of children that are referred to the Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) are turned away and the others can wait up to 10 months or more for appropriate help. We know that the service we are offering is changing lives.