Tools Before Crisis:

Aim

The most powerful thing we can give a child isn't a waiting list. It's teaching them the mental health tools to never need one.

The most powerful thing we can give a child isn't a waiting list. It's teaching them the mental health tools to never need one.

Why This Exists

Right now, the system waits.

It waits until a child is struggling in silence. It waits until a parent is desperate for answers. It waits until that child's name finally reaches the top of a CAMHS waiting list and by which point the damage is already done.

You wouldn't wait for decay to set in before you taught a child to brush their teeth. You wouldn't wait for a fire to start before you showed someone where the exit was. So why are we waiting for crisis to hit before we teach children the mental health tools they need?

Mental health education in our primary schools is too often reduced to a worry box in the corner of a classroom that nobody has time to open. Teachers are stretched, curriculums are packed, and maths and English will always win the timetable. The tools exist but children just never get them until it's too late.

I believe every child deserves those tools early. Consistently. As a normal part of growing up and not as a crisis response.

How Your Money Will Be Used

I provide workshops and resource packs to primary school children completely free of charge. No child should miss out because of budget. Here is how your support makes that possible:

£5 gives one child a workshop place and a Worry Buster pack to take home. £150 funds a full class of 30 children, or two community workshops for local families.

Every workshop is designed and delivered using years of clinical training and professional expertise in child therapy and CBT. Funding ensures that expertise remains accessible to every child, completely free at the point of delivery, and keeps Tools Before Crisis sustainable and growing.

Every pound raised also goes toward:

• Running workshops in East Devon primary schools and community spaces
• Producing and delivering Worry Buster packs for every child who takes part
• Building the evidence base that shows this works so we can take it further
• Laying the foundations for Phase Two and scaling across Devon and beyond

Who I Am

I'm a children's therapist and author based in East Devon. I combine CBT and hypnosis in my work with children, helping them understand their emotions in ways that are engaging, age appropriate, and genuinely effective.

I'm also a single parent of two. This mission isn't abstract to me. I want this world for my own children and for every child in the UK who deserves better than a waiting list.

The Idea

Tools Before Crisis puts recognised, evidence based CBT tools directly into the hands of primary school children, giving them what they need, when it matters most.

Right now, a child has to reach crisis point before anyone sits down and gives them the tools to cope. By then they're facing weeks or months on a CAMHS waiting list. Tools Before Crisis removes that from the equation entirely by making those tools part of everyday life and not a crisis response.

We pour enormous energy into teaching children maths and English. But how can we possibly expect a child to reach their full potential in the classroom if their mental health is poor? How can we expect them to concentrate, to learn, to thrive, if nobody has ever given them the tools to understand and manage what's going on inside their own mind?

Mental health tools are not a nice to have alongside maths and English. They are the foundation that makes everything else possible. And it's time they were treated that way.

These are not feel good activities. They are the same practical CBT techniques used in therapy rooms, tools that work, tools that children can carry into adulthood, and tools that belong in every primary school curriculum.

Simple enough for a classroom. Powerful enough to last a lifetime.

The Vision

Phase One

We start in East Devon primary schools, running workshops directly with children and sending them home with a pack of practical tools that consolidate everything they have learned. Real resources, in their hands, that they can return to again and again.

We are also bringing these tools into local communities, working with libraries and public spaces so that children and families can access them wherever they are, not just in school.

Phase Two

We go deeper into schools. Working directly with teachers, giving them the knowledge and confidence to support children who are anxious, struggling with their mental health, or navigating neurodiverse traits in the classroom. Because the adults around a child are just as important as the tools in their hands.

Then we grow across Devon. Then further.

The long term vision is simple: every primary school child in the UK has access to preventative mental health education as a core part of their learning. Not a nice to have. Not a tick box. A right.

Join Me

You don't have to be a therapist to change this. You just have to believe that children deserve better than a waiting list.

Back this project. Share it. Talk about it.

Because the best time to give a child mental health tools was years ago. The second best time is now.

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 8th August 2026 at 12:00pm