Megans Starr Foundation is a multi-award-winning registered charity, based in Pembrokeshire, that provides help, support and advice to young people and parents/carers throughout Pembrokeshire. MSF was established following the death by suicide of Megan Evans, our Founder, Nicolas, 14-year-old daughter. Megan was a kind, beautiful, popular, healthy, and vivacious young lady with a life full of promise and adventure awaiting her, but due to relentless cyber bullying, leading to a severe mental health crisis, she felt unable to reach out, and consequently her life cut short, and her familys life destroyed forever. The ripple effect of Megs death trickled into our community, and Nicola vowed that she would do everything in her capacity to ensure that no other child or young person would feel alone, scared, and unable to reach out for help. Megans Starr Foundations ethos, core values and mission statement are that suicide and mental health doesnt discriminate and it destroys families and communities. Unless we break the stigma and become proactive in our fight to raise awareness of teen suicide, support young peoples mental health, and offer advice and advocacy services to families, more young lives will be taken too early, with broken families and communities inevitable.

As the MSF charity continues to grow, we are currently extremely active both in our community and online via social media, running workshops and projects, promoting positive mental health and well-being, and offering advice and guidance, both in person and online. We fund free professional counselling services and peer support to young people who are facing crisis and offer support and coping strategies to parents/guardians who feel that they are unable to cope alone with the trials and tribulations of parenthood. We have recently been able to offer free Educational and Additional Learning Needs Surgeries at the Coffee Community House, to provide information regarding the new ALNET Act (2018) in Wales. This supports families and young people, ensuring they can access the correct provision and receive the education they are entitled to. We work in a unique and diverse way to break the mental health stigma often attached to accessing support, and to bridge the gap by advocacy, to statutory services.

We have recently opened a Community Coffee House, where young people in the community can access mental health and wellbeing support. Pembrokeshire has the highest level of child poverty in Wales, therefore offering disadvantaged young people, Looked After Young People (LAYP), young carers, and individuals not in education or employment (NEET), the chance to have work experience in a safe and supportive environment is paramount. This will enable them to gain confidence and experience, before venturing out into the working environment, where they will contribute to the economy and become valuable members of our society. We have recently launched our warm spaces evenings, where anyone in the community can come in and get a free hot drink and snack on a weekly basis. This initiative is designed to help those in the community who need a little support. At this time of year many young people are coming home from school to cold, dark empty houses as parents are likely to still be in work and the heating hasnt been on all day. They have a few hours where they may be alone, cold, hungry and lonely. Additionally older people who may live alone are having less time out due to the darker nights. This makes their time in isolation longer, and the loneliness more difficult to combat. By holding these late evenings and including events such as board games, Crochet classes, and creative crafts, we are giving the community a chance to come and make some new connections or to just get a warm drink and a bite to eat, in a non-judgemental way. Additionally, during the days, we offer other activities and classes such as The Young and the Elderly Club, Lego and Drama Club, Knit & Natter, Mindfulness and Yoga and during weekends we are hoping to introduce the Mental Health and Wellbeing Escape Room and Writing, Gratitude and Art Therapy workshop. Our Foundation is also looking at providing workshops based on wellbeing, resilience, and anti-bullying in a fun and dynamic way during the school holidays.

Our charity is vital to help those people in the community who need support. Everyone deserves a little kindness & in Megan's name, that's what we are striving to give.