Our award-winning health education initiative, Change Talks, is making a significant impact on the mental health and wellbeing of young people, school staff, and families across Lancashire and South Cumbria. The Change Talks programme has provided over 450 hours of targeted workshops in schools over the past academic year, with transformative results.
The service has also trained 398 professionals, including educators, in neurodiversity awareness, and reached over 500 parents and carers through practical workshops designed to offer insight, support and guidance.
One school to benefit from the programme is Albany Academy in Chorley, where Change Talks has worked closely with staff to address emerging mental health concerns.
The school’s safeguarding officer explains:
"We’ve been working with the Change Talks team and throughout the last academic year have built a strong and collaborative relationship. They have delivered bespoke groupwork on self-harm, body image, eating disorders, risk taking behaviours and unkind behaviours, tailored exactly to the needs of our students. Their flexible, evidence-based approach has had a real impact for our students."
The team’s responsiveness has been critical in meeting emerging issues in real time. Change Talks supports primary, secondary and further education students. For one student, the impact has been life changing after participating in a four week self-harm intervention.
She shared:
"The intervention was really good and made me look at self-harm differently. I started to see that it didn’t help me, so it wasn’t worth doing. I haven’t self-harmed in 11 months now, and that started with this course. I’m really proud of that."
Founded in 2017, by Sam Tyrer, Change Talks has reached more than 150,000 young people aged 4 to 21 across Lancashire and South Cumbria. All sessions are co-created by individuals with lived experience and healthcare professionals and cover essential topics such as online safety, anxiety, depression and stress.
Sam Tyrer, adds:
"At its core, Change Talks is about listening, responding, and empowering. Whether it’s a young person navigating identify, a teacher trying to better support neurodiverse students, or a parent seeking advice, our goal is to provide timely, compassionate, and practical help."
The Change Talks team is currently developing the first NHS-backed, interactive PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education) learning platform, designed to support children’s health, wellbeing, and life skills through engaging, meaningful content.
Developed by NHS health experts, the platform provides engaging, age-appropriate content that helps young people build resilience, develop healthy relationships, and manage their mental and physical wellbeing. It addresses the increasing pressures children face both online and offline and supports early intervention and preventative education in schools.
The platform covers the full PSHE curriculum and includes timely, topical content to reflect the real-world challenges students face. Sessions are brought to life through a combination of video content and interactive activities.
With mental health support becoming increasingly vital in schools, Change Talks stands as a trusted and transformative force, evolving in response to community feedback, ensuring its approach remains relevant and impactful.
