Maidstone & Mid-Kent Mind partner with Youth Resilience UK To Tackle Knife Crime in Young People

Maidstone and Mid-Kent Mind has been funded by the Office of the Kent Police Crime Commissioner, and the Home Office, to deliver FREE support and guidance for young people who may be at risk of turning to criminality due to poor mental health.

The new programme aims to tackle the relationships between gang affiliation/knife crime and poor mental health. Over the course of a five-week programme, young people will look at how to better cope with and process feelings of anger – helping them to find healthy ways to cope with these feelings. This combined with specialist course content from partners, will enable us to address how poor coping mechanisms can lead to an increased likelihood of involvement in crime.

The course has been rolled out within a number of Kent schools, but MMK Mind are now looking at opening these courses up to the wider public – providing opportunities for young people from all backgrounds to access this course and seek additional support. The course may offer even greater benefits to those currently not in employment, education or training – helping them to understand how poor mental health can lead to poor decision making and involvement in crime.

Julie Blackmore, CEO, said the following about the new programme:

“As an organisation, Maidstone and Mid-Kent Mind has developed a wealth of youth support programmes which all tackle different problem areas. The time has come, we feel, to broaden the impact of these programmes – and that is where working with partners like Youth Resilience UK comes in, enabling us to tackle specific areas of need within the local community.

We’ve already seen a great response for this programme within schools – so we are eager to see how taking the project to Open Access may benefit even more young people.”

The programme has been designed with young people who are of secondary school age. This allows the course to tackle a vast array of topics which are relevant within a secondary school environment.  

Two free five-week courses are open to young people in the Maidstone area. Both courses will begin on the 25th of February. 

For more details, you can visit here or email jameswalker@mmkmind.org.uk.