Please consider supporting our work through our partnership with Charitable Travel. Your donations have a huge impact on the lives of these young people.
How You Can Help
- Simply book your next holiday with Charitable Travel and tell us you want to support Our Time. The charity will then benefit from the free donation you can make as part of the booking process. To read more about how this works, head to our ‘About Us‘ page.
- If you want to make a donation to Our Time and you are not booking a holiday, click here to visit their website.
- Visit https://ourtime.org.uk/ to sign up to newsletters, and follow the Our Time social media pages and help spread the word.
How You Can Help
- Simply book your next holiday with Charitable Travel and tell us you want to support Our Time. The charity will then benefit from the free donation you can make as part of the booking process. To read more about how this works, head to our ‘About Us‘ page.
- If you want to make a donation to Our Time and you are not booking a holiday, click here to visit their website.
- Visit https://ourtime.org.uk/ to sign up to newsletters, and follow the Our Time social media pages and help spread the word.
Our Time is the only charity dedicated to supporting the children of parents with a mental illness. We give them the support they need – in their families and in their schools – so they can reach their full potential. This is what every child with a parent who has a mental illness deserves.
One in three children has a parent with poor mental health – more than one in ten have a parent with a severe mental illness. And these young people face unique challenges. They often struggle at school, with their education disrupted, and face bullying and isolation because of their family situation. Many are carers for their ill parent, or other family members, shouldering responsibilities beyond their years. Without support, they are three times more likely to develop mental health difficulties themselves.
But our KidsTime Workshops make a big difference. These sessions provide a safe and supportive space for families where there is mental illness in a parent – it’s often the first time these young people have spoken openly about their situation. Here, young people learn about mental illness through discussion, drama and games, and through this understanding comes resilience and compassion. They find support, new friendships and fun. Meanwhile, their parents have time to talk to each other, creating a lasting social network that becomes a source of advice and support.
“The KidsTime Workshop was the first time anyone described my mum’s illness clearly to me. I realised why she was different and that I had nothing to be ashamed of. I also met other children with the same problems which made me feel we weren’t abnormal. At home, I had to behave like an adult; we couldn’t run around or make a lot of noise and we had to always make sure Mum was okay. KidsTime was the one place I could be a child – I could play, have fun and laugh and I needed that” Girl, Kidstime Workshop
As well as helping these children within their families, Our Time supports them in their schools. Our school’s programme empowers both pupils and teachers to talk about, and understand, parental mental illness. We help teachers recognise students who have a parent with poor mental health, and we give them the confidence and the tools to support these young people. We enable them to become the trusted adults that all children of a parent with a mental illness should have.
Please consider supporting our work through our partnership with Charitable Travel. Your donations have a huge impact on the lives of these young people.
Get in touch
Our Time, Gateway Mews, Ringway, Bounds Green, London N11 2UT
Registered charity number 1196343. Company number CE027049.
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