Free to Be Kids uses the outdoors, adventure and psychologically informed youthwork to transform the mental health of particularly vulnerable young Londoners experiencing immense challenge – parental addiction, neglect, abuse, poverty and homelessness, which have resulted in emotional/behavioural difficulties at school or home.
We support young people whose childhoods have left them feeling different, unwanted, excluded and alone, to instead experience themselves as brave, talented, belonging and successful. Children who’ve never left their area of London before and whose school lives give them repeated messages of failure/low self-worth, instead lead night walks through the woods (leadership, responsibility), work in teams to canoe down rivers (teamwork, problem solving), or climb a hill for the first time (broadened horizons, resilience) creating a vastly healthier psychological story about oneself.
Once we’ve built trusting relationships with hard-to-reach children round the campfire, we then bridge the highest need into our longterm support programmes: 1:1 mentoring, our Young Leaders Programme, or our 18 month intensive Thrive Journey Programme.
Ultimately our programmes work to rebuild the foundations of positive mental health: confidence, resilience, social problem solving skills, and belief in the power of their own potential, for London’s most disadvantaged children.
You can hear our young people talking about the impact of our work in this short 2 minute film.
In 2025 WWMT have granted £30,000 over 3 yrs to the Thrive Journey Programme:
Spread over 12 months, Journey modules provide more specialized and targeted support for young people, aged 12 to 16, with deeply entrenched negative self-narratives. Each year, two new cohorts of eight young people start six five- day residential projects, spread over 18 months. Residentials are supported by frequent liaison with school, home and key agencies, equating to 300 hours direct support for each child over the 18 months, making a lasting positive impact on each child.
