Therapy for 20 suicidal young people in Hackney

With just over £5387.00 raised, we would like to thank all the fantastic supporters who have donated.  £5,000 enables us to provide much needed therapeutic and suicide prevention support for 6 x young people for 6 months.  In 2015 alone, 131 of the young people we supported had either suffered with suicidal thoughts or already attempted suicide. Your valuable donations will enable us to support more young people to see a hopeful future.

More young people, like Darius; (his name has been changed for his protection):   

Darius’ parents separated 2 years ago due to domestic abuse by his mother. After social services involvement,
Darius was allowed to live with his father, with unsupervised visits and stays with his mother.

During our first session Darius disclosed that his mother had physically attacked him on a previous evening. He reported that his mother had beaten him up for putting a speaker back untidily. 

There was evidence of physical bruising on his arms and his face in our session with him.  As with most young people who experience domestic abuse by a care giver, Darius did not want to get his mother in to trouble. He wanted to punish himself instead by committing suicide. Our therapist worked very hard to build trust with Darius and ensured he knew his future and safety is paramount. As we felt that D was at risk of immediate significant harm.  We made an immediate emergency safeguarding referral in this case Child Protection – Hackney Children’s Social Care.  From here, Darius’ father was given full custody with his mother having to psychiatric treatment and attend anger management course with no access to Darius until she was deemed fit by the courts to see him again.  

Darius was very agitated at this stage and his thoughts of suicide were intensifying as he felt that he was worried his mother would punish him. Through our work with D, he was able to understand that the abuse had nothing to do with him. He was not the problem. This understanding helped to reduce his suicidal ideation and see more hope for his future! We go the extra mile in order to safeguard our young people.

It’s very likely that if Darius was not sign posted to us, he may still have been abused.  By the end of his time with us, Darius was able to implement some boundaries in regards to communicating with his mother, no longer experienced suicide ideation and wants to be a teacher having a positive perspective for his future!

We work tirelessly and passionately to ensure that every young person who walks through our doors, receives the best care for their mental health issues.

Every child deserves support to be the best they can be. We can’t do this without the support from people like you! We implore you to support us and help young people like Darius, have a chance to be great!

Thank you from everyone at Off Centre!

Links:

• Off Centre