Spark is a mental health charity for young people, based at Loughton Youth Centre on Border’s Lane. Usually we see around a hundred 11-23-year-olds a week for 1-1, face-to-face appointments – as well as delivering mental health workshops in schools.

As soon as lockdown began, we set about skilling up our team of counsellors and mentors to operate via Zoom or telephone. This meant (in some cases) doing some intensive training to make sure that everyone was up to date with how to practise virtually, as there are different issues to be aware of. We then put the tech in place to get the appointments set up.

We have been able to successfully move around two-thirds of our clients to online or telephone mentoring and counselling – and have even taken on some new clients who have presented with anxiety because of the impacts of coronavirus. Our clients are all vulnerable, so we believe it’s been vital to ensure continuity of our provision. One mum said: ‘Thanks so much for everyone's hard work and involvement in Spark, especially now when the kids need someone to talk to even more.’