Snow-Camp, the UK’s only charity using snowsports to change the lives of inner-city youth, has announced the launch of their new Mental Health Programme, Uplift. The decision to launch the new programme comes as a result of the charity’s monitoring and evaluation data, which revealed 83% of the young people they worked with last year feel they need more mental health support. Uplift will be funded by the George Bairstow Charitable Trust and delivered by Kevin Hempstead, a humanistic counselor and a registered BACP member.

Snow-Camp’s youth volunteers decided on the programme name “Uplift”. A name linked to skiing and mental wellbeing. The youth volunteers will be trialling the programme over the next few months and Snow-Camp hope to run the programme alongside the charity’s core snowsports programmes next year. The programme will contain a number of workshops and 1-1 support sessions that will help young people suffering with low self-esteem, self-confidence and self-defeating beliefs. The workshops will teach young people invaluable coping mechanisms to help deal with toxic attachments, societal conditioning and addictions.

The programme will be funded by the George Bairstow Charitable Trust, a Trust set up in honour of George Bairstow who was tragically killed in a car accident in 2013, whilst heading home from a shift volunteering for St John Ambulance. The Trust aims to support young people who, like George, want to volunteer in their community and have a passion for helping others in need.

Kevin Hempstead, a humanistic counsellor and registered BACP member, will be leading the delivery of the programme alongside Doctor Carla Stanton.