Led by and for girls and women with lived experience, Sunbeams was founded to support the mental health and wellbeing of girls in Hackney’s Orthodox Jewish community.

Our funding has helped them deliver early mental health support in five local girls’ schools. This is the first time these schools have received professional and long-term support to improve their mental health practices and policies.

Yenti and Ruchi founded Sunbeams at just 18 years old, after helping a friend who was experiencing serious mental illness. They realised that many girls face challenges in childhood, such as low self-esteem or bereavement, which when left unaddressed, can escalate into more serious and complex mental health issues.

Since then, they’ve provided mentoring for over 800 girls and built strong partnerships with 11 schools.

Strengthening mental health support in Orthodox Jewish schools is crucial, as many girls face additional barriers to counseling and therapeutic services.

Some of those barriers include the mistrust of local authorities, stigma, and a lack of culturally appropriate signposting. Parents and carers rely on school to support their child’s mental wellbeing, but this can be challenging in under-resourced schools.

As a community-trusted charity, Sunbeams addresses these challenges by helping partner schools integrate mental health and wellbeing support into their school’s overall strategy.

Improving mental health provisions starts with an initial audit, where the school’s senior management team meets with a clinical psychologist to identify key areas for improvement. This approach ensures that support is tailored to meet the specific needs of the students, parent body, teachers and senior management team.

Following the initial audit, schools receive ongoing support through monthly visits from a clinician with expertise in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). Adopting a whole-school approach to wellbeing, they use the time to develop and implement new policies and provisions around mental health.

Some examples of work undertaken include more training for staff, a new garden-duty system to ensure wellbeing of neurodivergent pupils in breaktime, “teacher and me time” and new record keeping systems for wellbeing concerns.

A key part of this work has been supporting and directing school staff to relevant mainstream services including CAMHS and Hackney’s Social Communication Assessment Clinic. By increasing schools' understanding of how to navigate these services, Sunbeams helps make mental health support more accessible.

While tailored support is at the heart of Sunbeams' work, they also expand their impact across schools by hosting an 'Improving Wellbeing at School' forum three times a year, which bring schools together to share best practices around mental health. This not only reduces stigma but also fosters a community dedicated to enhancing girls' wellbeing.

By equipping schools with stronger policies and practices, Sunbeams has created system-wide changes in how schools approach mental health.

Their efforts have also established them as a key ‘voice in the community’, representing the wellbeing of Orthodox Jewish girls and women at Hackney’s mental health strategy meetings. This representation is vital to ensuring that statutory support is more inclusive.

We’re proud to support Sunbeams as they empower girls to reach their full potential and break down systemic barriers to mental health support. Their impact has transformed the lives of thousands of girls, creating lasting solutions that enhance wellbeing and enable girls to thrive in school.

For more information on Sunbeams' impact, visit their website.