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April was a very special month for the team at Inside Out.
Why?
Last month marked 3 years since Inside Out has been working as a social enterprise across the UK, to improve mental health and well-being prospects in the lives of young adults. We are passionate about what we do, and why we do what we do.
Some things you might be wondering:
Who is the founder of Inside Out? What’s the story of its origins?
When did Inside Out Start?
What IS Inside Out?
Why did Inside Out even begin?
The classic W questions.
Well good news is, this post is dedicated to answering those questions.
Who and When:
Inside Out is a social enterprise which started in 2017 by the Founder and Creative Director, Vanessa Boachie [BSc, PGCert]. Vanessa is an Award Winning Social Entrepreneur, with a background as a Psychological Therapist and Wellness Coach. Using her knowledge and skills gained from working in mental health and completing higher education in psychology, she, along with an amazing team, brought together Inside Out.
Vanessa’s passion to learn all there is to know about mental health, first started when a friend of hers began self harming and attempted suicide. In her quest to lend support to her friend in his evident time of need, researching into mental health seemed like the best thing to do. After acquiring substantial knowledge of mental health, Vanessa’s interest expanded and led to her applying to university to study Psychology as a bachelor’s degree. She then went onto studying a Postgraduate Course in this discipline.
Deepening her understanding of mental health, Vanessa’s fascination with mental health and her passion to help others, brought her to the decision to start Inside Out. Using all of the skills and experiences of working in mental health, and her years of studying, Inside Out had all the right tools to get kicked started.
What and Why:
Inside Out is a not-for-profit social enterprise that is committed to helping people, in particular young adults, improve their mental health and wellbeing.
Our aim is to help young people reduce their risk of developing mental health disorders, through our prevention and early interventions approach. We use psycho-education and creativity to educate and engage others into learning about mental health and wellbeing, and practical tools to navigate them away from declining good mental health.
Our focus is on young adults, due to Vanessa finding out in her research, as well as from personal life experiences as a young adult, that generally, young adults in the UK lack mental health education and understanding. This is largely due to the lack of accessible services that are available, which focuses on educating young adults about mental health, and ways that they can look after and promote good mental health in their own life, as well as in their loved ones lives.
We also noticed a lack of mental health services that taught in fun, creative, and interactive ways. Such teaching styles are promising, as it makes learning easier, and the passing of information more transferable. At Inside Out, we have made it our mission to engage with young adults in a way that communicates well with them, ensuring that they leave all sessions that we run, with new knowledge and understanding.
If you are interested in learning more about Inside Out, please follow us on Instagram
We upload helpful advice and tips throughout the week on ways to promote good mental health, as well as keeping you updated on our events, which typically take the form of workshops and webinars.
We look forward to bringing years more of mental health and wellbeing support, and seeing the impact of our work in the lives of young people across the UK.
-Written by Jadi-Ann Bent (Inside Out UK Team)
P.S. We squeezed the last 3 years of Inside Out into a 4-minute video, watch it here: