Alice is lucky enough to work for One-Eighty and just as lucky to have a team of friends and family to support (drag) her around this Sparton Obstacle course!

One-Eighty Story

We exist to support young people who other organisations/ professionals struggle to access and who would fall through the cracks in support between education and health.

Without our support, young people continue to be missing from education, sometimes waiting up to 4 years for clinical assessment or support, leaving detrimental consequences.

The British Press refer to these young people as Ghost Children - we estimate there are over 20,000 young people across Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire who are persistently absent from school.

Your donation will support more young people like Tyler who are slipping through the net of support and are at risk of disengaging from school.

Tyler, aged 13, is trying to make sense of a bereavement and living with family that he hasn’t lived with before – he often has arguments and feels they don’t understand him. He also suffers with very low self-esteem and just being around people of his own age, brings on high anxiety – at the very mention of school, he shuts down. As such, he hasn't attended secondary school for the past year. He has met with many professionals but is very good at masking his emotions – nodding, smiling and agreeing to what they say with no intention of following through.

We met Tyler in school – we wanted him to get used to the environment but could see he was full of anxiety just coming into the space. We planned lots of fun activities around his interests – it helped us to get to know him in a safe space. We could see he was very unconfident and judgemental of himself, but he gradually started to open up and realise his accomplishments. We helped him to understand his emotions, giving him strategies to manage things when he felt angry or dysregulated. We helped school, to provide a space that he could go to when he felt this way. We worked with his parent too and together we supported them to have positive, restorative conversations – they both understand each other more and are able to see the other’s point of view.

Tyler is now gradually attending school. With our support and guidance, school created a timetable that initially focussed on his interests; building up his attendance each week. Tyler told us that he believes he is "stronger than he thought he was." He is starting to make some friendships and continues to try and open up to his parent and school about his feelings.

Please support our team to help more young people like Tyler who are slipping through the net of support.

Donate today!

£25 would fund a Summer Project trip for a young person

£120 would fund resources for a one-to-one intervention - building activities that are tailored to the young person's interests

£500 would fund your local primary school to receive a Make Me Smile session

£900 would fund a Summer Project place for a young person