Wellspring: Why new head of Harrogate counselling charity is putting children at heart of vision
It is now well-recognised that mental ill health often starts early in life. Research suggests half of all mental health problems have been established by the age of 14, rising to 75 per cent by the age of 24. Against this backdrop, the new chief executive of Harrogate-based counselling, therapy and training charity Wellspring has a clear vision.
"Currently, for every 100 counselling hours we provide a week, only 22 go to children. They also wait longer for our services,” says Nick Garrett, who took up the post permanently last month, after a year as interim CEO. "I’d really like to turn that around. Every additional hour for a child is an investment in preventing future mental health needs...At the moment, we’re seeing significantly more adults than we are children. If we turn that around, we’d have less adults to see in the future.
"My mission is to radically change our provision so we increase the number of children and young people’s counsellors we have. The more children and young people we see, the less challenges those kids will have later in life, the less impact on the health service, the more productive they will be in the workforce, and the better parents they will be when their turn comes.”
Garrett, who lives in Knaresborough and is a Pioneer Pastor at Gracious Street Methodist Church in the town, has taken over Wellspring from Emily Fullarton, who stepped down after a decade at the helm of the charity. Founded in 2003, it provides affordable short and long-term private counselling for the Harrogate and district community and works with people dealing with issues including stress, abuse, eating disorders, addiction, bullying and relationship difficulties.
Fullarton took the reins from founding director Elaine Wainaina, who set up Wellspring as a Christian-based organisation, originally to help those struggling with anxiety and depression. As she stepped away from her post, Fullarton spoke of growing demand for services. “There is no doubt that the global pandemic, followed by a severe cost-of-living crisis, has had a detrimental effect on the mental health of both children and adults across all sections of society,” she said. “As a result, the demand for our services in the Harrogate area is growing fast. I know Nick will take the challenges this presents in his stride.”
Garrett had a varied career, though for the past nearly two decades, considerable focus has been on children and young people. After a degree in international relations, with his sights set on becoming a foreign correspondent, he ended up working in financial services and then manufacturing. What followed next was 16 years in a variety of local government roles at Leeds City Council and North Yorkshire County Council, where he specialised in technology and transformation.
“Whilst I worked in local government, I was asked to review the safeguarding arrangements for Leeds City Council and I really got to understand children’s services and the way an entire city can improve the lives of children,” Garrett reflects. “A lot of my thinking around mental health and children and young people has come from that time.”
His most recent career has been consultancy work in health and social care, considering topics such as demand for mental health care and inequalities in mental health provision. He started at Wellspring as interim chief executive in February last year.
“I’d received counselling myself before in the past and I really thought it had benefitted me and helped me to get on in life,” says Garrett, who grew up in Ripon. “I’d taken a real interest in mental health issues as part of my consultancy work and had retained an interest from my work at Leeds City Council so when the opportunity came up at Wellspring, it was a dream to have a chance to lead a really important charity doing good work improving the mental health of children and adults. I’m really passionate about supporting people with mental health issues.”
The Covid pandemic and cost-of-living pressures are not the only reasons why there’s greater demand for mental health support, Garrett says. “We’ve done a reasonably good job in our society of removing and reducing the level of stigma applied to mental ill health. That’s a good thing. What it means is people are more likely to come forward and ask for support. That’s one reason of many why we have seen an increase and why we have more people waiting for treatment...What we need to do is make sure we support quickly and early enough and with the right kind of support.”
A big focus is on children and adolescents and there’s need for early intervention and support. The aim is to make an impact as quickly as possible, Garrett says, to help improve outcomes for young people and prevent escalating need or risk. For Wellspring, and more generally, that means more counsellors are needed who are dedicated to children and young people.
The charity is already a training centre and Garrett hopes to build on that. Money from donors and fundraising will be directed towards training up more counsellors for children and young people. Wellspring saw around 380 adults last year and 65 children – and Garrett hopes to be able to increase service availability for the latter. After all, “the work that we do really makes a difference to people,” he says.
"If we can really support and help a parent, for example, which we do, that’s a whole family. If we can support a child and help them cope with life, be more resilient, and thrive, that will last a lifetime...We are sharing in people’s lives, sharing the ups and downs. We’re supporting them through it and they’re coming out of counselling more resilient, more able to cope and able to engage in the world in a more meaningful way.”