Winding down our Children’s Mental Health programme

Programme achievements and highlights

• We funded Old Kent Road Family Zone at Surrey Square Primary School and the Community Leadership Programme with Big Education that supports education leaders in following a similar journey.
• We provided core funding to Class 13, which put it on the education landscape, including with the launch of An Argument for Possibility (pdf), and with it their embedded schools pilot with Henry Fawcett Primary and Lilian Baylis Technology School in Lambeth.
• We were part of the Centre for Young Lives Play Commission launch of Everything to Play For in the House of Lords, which contributed to the launch of the APPG for Play chaired by Tom Hayes MP, as well as the UK Government’s commitment of £18m to support play initiatives. These commitments signaled a significant step toward improving access to play opportunities nationwide.
• Our partner Partisan celebrated the launch of Harambee, a collaboration with Milk Honey Bees, Loughborough Community Centre (LCC) and ParentSkills2Go to engage in participatory alternative system design for Black mental health. We look forward to LCC leading on the next phase of the project, supported by learning partner Word on the Curb.
• Oval Learning was the school community portfolio’s first partner and has been involved in more projects, submissions to government consultations and community initiatives than any other programme partner. Their work across the Oval, Brixton and Windmill areas of Lambeth, allowed the programme to learn from, share with, and deliver projects in 40 schools, with a focus on supporting  whole school approaches to mental health and wellbeing, developing schools as community anchors, and brokering vital connections across the VCSE, health and education sectors.
• We developed a number of partnerships which sought to improve conditions for children experiencing homelessness, particularly in Temporary Accommodation. Recommendations and insights from New Economics Foundation, King’s College London, Shared Health Foundation and Trust for London were all featured in the Child Poverty Strategy and National Plan to End Homelessness.
• We worked with Hello Brave to set up The Parent Panel, a pilot project designed to test new ways of working with parents and caregivers to support the decisions we made in our Children’s Mental Health programme.
• We funded and worked with Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), Changing Realities and End Child Poverty Coalition to argue for change to the two-child limit – the limit was abolished on 6 April 2026 after a November 2025 announcement by government.