Working to encourage good mental health among young women – Part 2

Back in May, we blogged about an amazing initiative between Cumbria South Guiding and two of our Kendal members, Sarah and Emily, a mum and sister bereaved by suicide following the death of Sarah’s daughter and Emily’s sister, Heather. Heather had been involved in guiding for years and was most recently a young leader. Sarah and Emily wanted to create some sort of legacy that would also contribute to good mental health and wellbeing in future.

heather’s sister, Emily and Mum, Sarah

Sarah takes up the story in the Autumn of 2023:

“On Sunday 1st October, the Twinkle for Heather team held a guides and leaders day at High Newton,” she explains. “This was to trial some of the activities for the new badge and to get feedback on what would or wouldn’t work.

We hosted approximately 40 Girlguiding members, Andy Airey from 3Dads Walking and a big supporter of PAPYRUS and its work on suicide prevention for young people, Vicky Boggan from Every Life Matters and Julie Walton, Girl Guiding’s Northwest region Chief. This initial event was filmed for BBC Breakfast and aired later in October.”

You can find the link to that BBC Breakfast piece here for the next few weeks.

Free food was provided by local business, Heft and cakes were made by Phill, Heather’s dad. 

Emily kicked off the proceedings with a wonderful presentation about Heather, her time in guiding and what she and her Mum hoped the challenge badge would achieve:

·         techniques for managing anxiety and normalising discussion of mental health and

·         providing contacts for community support groups both locally and nationally.

Sarah then talked about the badge design and the origins of the name of the challenge.

“The badge design is based on the colours of an afterglow or sunset,” she says. “Afterglow by Becky Hill was the last song played at Heather’s funeral and it had been chosen by her during a conversation with friends after a friend’s mum’s funeral.  The challenge name, Twinkle for Heather, was chosen because Heather’s leader name when helping at Rainbows was Twinkle.”

Since the event, Andy Airey has sewn his Twinkle for Heather badge on to his PAPYRUS flag which means that he will be taking it on his next campaign walk.

Barb Littlewood, Guider and driving force behind a lot of this, gave a talk about her hopes of reaching out to as many people as possible and this was followed by Andy Airey talking about his involvement with PAPYRUS.

“The chatter in the room was amazing as everyone set to the activities. Alison and Jazz from BBC Breakfast interviewed all those that wanted to chat, including myself, Emily, Barb and Andy.

Ready for launch

Feedback was wonderful, a few tweaks were suggested and amendments made, ready for the final draft of the challenge badge, which was launched at Kendal College on World Mental Health Day, the 10th of October.

On the 10th, about 60 people, including over 20 Guides and various Rainbow, Brownie and Guide leaders, were involved.

almost 60 people took part in the launch event at kendal college

“We were hosted by the lovely Caroline and the hair and beauty students of Kendal College,” explains Sarah, “plus we had a ‘market-place’ with information stalls by SBS, PAPYRUS and Mike Palmer (3Dads Walking), Every Life Matters, SAFA, Barrow Women’s Community and, of course, everyone from Girlguiding plus family and some of Heather’s friends.”

Kendal college made everyone really welcome

After another wonderful presentation by Emily and a little bit by Sarah, the Guides were treated to nail, hair and skin care advice from the hair and beauty students. Everyone took time to visit each of the stalls to chat about what mental health support was available to them in the community.

Everything was rounded up with a summary by Sarah and Barb followed by Mike, reiterating what Andy had previously said but from his perspective as another of the 3DadsWalking.

Feedback was great and everyone was very enthusiastic about the potential of the challenge reaching as many people as possible.

Kitty from SBS Cumbria, a volunteer involved in the Kendal peer support group, attended the launch with our materials, along with Amber Cropley:

kitty and amber from our kendal group represented SBS cumbria at the launch event

“It was an honour to be asked to be involved in the Twinkle for Heather badge launch,” says Kitty. “Seeing how much work, time and effort had gone into such a brilliant idea, it was a beautiful way of remembering Heather. The whole night was so enjoyable and there were lots of happy young faces around, which is always great to see. We chatted to some very inspirational people who had gone through tough times but were there supporting each other. As a group, we are so proud of Sarah and Emily - they are a proper good team and have brought light to our meetings.” 

What followed?

The BBC Breakfast report aired on Tuesday 17th October, just a week after the launch event. Cumbria South Guiding and Sarah have since received contacts from guiding units in over 40 counties across Great Britian.  

So far, there is interest from Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Caernarfonshire, Cambridgeshire, Cleveland, Cornwall, Cheshire, Derbyshire, Devon, Durham, Dunbartonshire, East Dunbartonshire, East Lothian, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Isle of Man, Jersey, Kent, Leeds, London, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Lanarkshire, Manchester, Merseyside, Newcastle, Northumberland, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Renfrewshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Stirlingshire, Sussex, Tyneside, West Flintshire, West Lothian, West Mercia, West Midlands and Yorkshire! 

The Girlguiding organisation has asked Emily and Sarah to be honorary ambassadors and to promote the challenge badge at regional events. This is with the hope of reaching more units, possibly even being promoted nationally.

“As well as the Girlguiding connections, we have had contacts from a number of headteachers in the area, from child psychologists and from Scout groups,” says Sarah. “It is all getting a bit exciting, in the most bittersweet way. I hope it makes a difference for young women in the years to come.”