The YM and U

The Ideas Fund, run by the British Science Association and funded by Wellcome, has awarded £72,963.35 of funding to Dr Victoria McCollum (Cinematic Arts) and Dr Denise MacDermott (Social Work) to run this pilot project in collaboration with YMCA Derry. The YM and You programme will offer help and support to 15 young women and girls (aged11-14) at risk of developing mental health issues. It will help them to build resilience, grow in confidence, and empower and inspire them to be masters of their own destiny. The project will address the challenges community groups and researchers can face working together – and the mentoring programme will match trained student volunteer mentors from the Derry~Londonderry campus with teenage girls from the city to support them to be their best. Evidence suggests that some teen girls’ mental health and wellbeing has been substantially impacted during the pandemic, with some teenagers reporting anxiety over academics, post-lockdown malaise, social media angst, and online harassment. These factors, coupled with average adolescent experiences, can impact teen girls and affect them through poor self-esteem, underperformance at school, becoming less physically active, and causing them to neglect to nurture their own personal passions, goals, and aspirations.