Jake’s story

We’re into the third week of this year’s Ops Fundraising Challenge and colleagues up and down the country have been putting their Action for Children fundraising plans into action.

The Ops Challenge is your opportunity to raise both awareness of mental health issues affecting young people and money to enable children across the UK get the support they need from Action for Children’s internationally acclaimed mental health initiative, the Blues Programme.

Jake – Whitchurch High School, Cardiff

Fifteen-year-old Jake took part in the Blues Programme as he was struggling with issues around body image and grief following the deaths of two of his closest family members.

‘I didn't like the way I looked and I'd look at others and think they looked better than me,’ he said. ‘The Blues Programme helped me to look at things differently. Instead of just focusing on the worst things, the programme helped me to look instead at all the good things in my life.

‘Thinking about the bad things made me feel worse and act worse, but thinking about the good things made me feel better about things.

‘It’s great because the programme teaches you how to deal with your emotions and stress and gives you nice little tips on how to cope with everything.

‘The Blues Programme has really helped with my confidence. It has also taught me how to express myself better so that I can tell people what’s going on in my life. It’s a lot easier for me to deal with things now.’

Jake is really grateful to Royal Mail for funding the Blues Programme: ‘Thank you so much for donating money to the Blues Programme and helping it all kick off. It has really helped young people like me to experience something which has changed our lives and changed how we think.’