When young people in Brighton and Hove decided they needed better mental health support, they didn't wait for someone else to fix it—they organized, they spoke up, and they won. During Mental Health Awareness Week, a broad coalition of students and sixth-formers from schools across the city celebrated the success of their Citizens UK campaign, one that has already begun reshaping how the council supports young people's wellbeing.
The campaign started with a simple but powerful demand: make mental health counselling accessible to students in school. Young people understood what adults often overlook—that isolation and silence make suffering worse, and that early intervention changes lives. Councillor Emma Daniel, cabinet member for children, families and youth services, and council leader Bella Sankey attended the celebration, but the moment belonged entirely to the young campaigners themselves. They had set their priority, they had been clear about what they needed, and they had made their voices impossible to ignore during the 2023 local election campaign.
Brighton and Hove's local Labour administration listened. Over the past three years, the council has invested £600,000 to ensure secondary school children can access mental health counselling within their schools—a tangible commitment born directly from young people's organizing. The impact is already visible in the lives of students who have used the service. Some found their way through family breakdown with professional support. Others discovered the counselling made the difference between struggling silently with body image and developing harmful patterns, catching disordered eating before it took deeper hold. Still others used the space to work through friendship conflicts that had begun eroding their confidence and their willingness to show up to school at all.
What makes this victory particularly significant is that it's not a one-year pilot program or a temporary response to a campaign moment. The council has built the mental health counselling service into its public health budget going forward, guaranteeing that young people will have access to this support long after today's sixth-formers leave education for the workplace. That decision reflects a understanding that the mental health crisis facing young people isn't a temporary trend—it's a systemic challenge that requires sustained investment and structural change.
The campaign also reveals something essential about how good policy actually happens. It's not enough to be aware of a problem or to express concern. Real change requires matching words with action, listening to young people's priorities rather than assuming what they need, and then following through with funding and commitment. This is the kind of work that shapes not just individual lives but generational outcomes. Early intervention in mental health doesn't just ease immediate suffering—it prevents compounding damage, preserves academic progress, and gives young people tools for managing their wellbeing throughout their lives.
Brighton and Hove is also investing in the broader landscape of youth wellbeing, with new youth facilities including a brand new centre in Knoll Park and a multi-use games area in Rottingdean. But the mental health counselling service stands apart as something the young people themselves demanded and won—a reminder that when young people are genuinely heard, the changes they push for benefit everyone in their community for years to come.