New Haven Initiative

We were excited to learn of a new initiative being launched by one of our Church charities The Haven. Claire Banham tells us all about it:

Archbishop Tutu said “There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in.”

Anxiety is normal but for some of our participants each day brings a real sense of dread and imminent danger, even if they’re not quite sure of the cause. Without the right kind of support and access to useful strategies, this kind of generalised anxiety can become a significant limiting factor in young lives, and even be the gateway to other, harder to treat mental health issues.  

In the support groups we run in secondary schools, participants who are regularly struggling with acute anxiety often point to the transition from primary to secondary schools as the catalyst for their anxiety. With this in mind, this summer Haven is trialling a new course with year 6 pupils in four Hertfordshire Primary Schools.

I will be using the familiar and proven structure of the popular Haven support group approach, combined with brand new, age-specific resources that have been developed specifically for Haven Primary, with the support of an experienced school’s counsellor and child psychologist.  

I’m so excited to be trying out these new tools with school pupils who are fast approaching the step-up to secondary school. So often the young people we work with don’t really understand what is happening in their minds and bodies when they get anxious. Helping them to feel more in control with what they are experiencing, as well as pointing out that they are not the only one feeling this way, can have an immediate impact on the levels of anxiety which they are experiencing.

The Haven plans to use the learning of this pilot phase to publish the new Haven Primary Course and roll-out to further schools in 2025.  And then we pray Haven can prevent even more young people falling into ‘the river’ in the first place!

Claire Banham
Haven Founder and Director