Delivered by children’s charity MedEquip4Kids, the Hummingbird Project is a free six-week Positive Psychology course for North-West schools to help pupils learn ways to feel happier. In this article, our Development Manager, Catherine North, tells the story of how and why the project came about.
Children's mental health in crisis
MedEquip4Kids has a 40-year history of supporting children’s healthcare by providing medical equipment and improved environments in NHS hospitals. It was around 10 years ago that we also started funding toys, books and games for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).
One day I was travelling back with my colleague from a visit to a CAMHS inpatient unit. The staff had given us a warm welcome, showed us around the facilities, and thanked us for the resources we had given them. It was obvious that these dedicated, caring staff were doing their best for young people with serious mental health issues, while having almost no budget to invest in the basic equipment they needed. We heard stories of staff using their own money to fund books and colouring pens.
CAMHS were also dealing with record numbers of young people being referred for treatment. At the time, around one in nine children were thought to have a diagnosable mental health condition such as anxiety, depression, or an eating disorder. Contributory factors included the pressures of school and social media, bullying, abuse and trauma, social deprivation, and more.
Getting involved in schools
We knew that school staff were trying to support those pupils who were struggling, but that teachers often lacked the necessary training and had no spare funds to invest in mental health education. I remarked to my colleague that as a children’s health charity, we should get involved not only in supporting mental health services, but in alleviating the pressure on them and reducing suffering by helping to prevent these problems from developing in the first place. She agreed that it fell within our remit to run a free programme of psychological education in schools. But no one in the charity then had the necessary expertise to create one.
Partnership working with universities
Eventually I sent out an email to local university psychology departments asking for guidance. In what proved to be a serendipitous moment for the project, I received a phone call from Professor Jerome Carson from the University of Bolton (now the University of Greater Manchester), asking how he could help. He and his colleague Dr Chathurika Kannangara came to meet me and our CEO, Dr Ghazala Baig.
Jerome and Chathurika, both eminent in the field of Positive Psychology, were instrumental in helping us to research and develop our six week course, which we piloted in Manchester in 2017. We couldn’t have done it without them and today our partnership remains strong. They introduced us to Ian Platt, the postgraduate psychologist who we commissioned to carry out the initial scoping study. Ian still manages the Hummingbird Project, having taken responsibility for its design, delivery and evaluation.
The need is even greater
In 2025 we are facing an unprecedented crisis in children’s mental health. In the last decade the situation has become considerably worse, with one in five young people now thought to have a diagnosable condition.
Again, there are a multitude of reasons - social media’s enduring impact on body image and self-esteem, the devastating legacy of the Covid-19 pandemic and its effect on young people’s social development, the recent period of political upheaval and the cost-of-living crisis. Young people face so much uncertainty about their future, as well as frequent negativity in the media towards their generation for their perceived inability to deal with life’s ups and downs.
Learning from the past
Of course, despite the rose-tinted nostalgia of some of my contemporaries, young people have always been vulnerable to mental health struggles, even if not on the scale we see today. Thinking back to my school days, I remember numerous of my and my classmates’ behaviours that I now recognise as being driven by anxiety, trauma or low self-esteem. We simply didn’t have the concepts or language to describe what we were feeling at the time.
I didn’t appreciate what clinical anxiety or depression were until I was diagnosed with them myself aged 29. I didn’t seek help until then because I wasn’t aware that I needed it or even that it was available. Not to mention the stigma attached to a diagnosis of mental illness, which sadly still exists in many circles.
I was lucky to have a good education. I learned a lot about history, art, literature, and philosophy. I had no idea how to apply all this wisdom of centuries to my own emotions. I certainly didn’t like myself. Why would I have done? As far as I was concerned, I wasn’t pretty or cool or funny or good at sports. I didn’t know then that I had my own unique character strengths, or a value that was independent of other people’s approval.
And I wasn’t alone in growing up without a strong sense of self-worth, something I believe is one of the building blocks for learning to respond to challenging external circumstances. That’s why when I talk to other adults about the Hummingbird Project, so often their response is:
“I wish something like that had been available when I was at school.”
Looking to the future
No child or young person should ever be blamed for their mental health difficulties. What we need, and what the Hummingbird Project seeks to provide, is supportive, knowledgeable and empathetic educators who empower students with the techniques and tools to help them take care of their mental wellbeing. By doing this we can maximise their chances of a happier future, one in which they can flourish and thrive.
In subsequent posts we will take a closer look at the Hummingbird Project’s focus and impact. We will feature articles by other Hummingbird staff and researchers from the University of Greater Manchester, the University of Chester and the Open University, who have contributed to the progression of the course. We will also hear from some of the 7,500 young people who have benefited from learning ways to feel happier and how to take care of their emotional health.
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