This is Gravity is proud to share the World Mental Health Day announcement that Bounce Forward has entered a far-reaching partnership with the Harry Kane Foundation. Their shared mission is to inspire and transform a generation’s thinking about mental health and how to nurture and build psychological fitness.
The partnership will provide free psychological fitness training and educational resources, designed to nurture and build mental resilience, and emotional wellbeing, proven to have a positive impact. These resources will be available in schools, workplaces, and to a broader audience through Harry’s influence, platforms, and networks, with the goal of promoting positive mental health across generations.
The partnership kicks off with 17 schools across nine regions in England gaining access to Bounce Forward’s Healthy Minds teaching resources, featuring bespoke content co-authored by Harry and his wife, Kate Kane.
Gravity introduced Bounce Forward to Bridgwater in 2021 as an integrated part of its transformational strategy to create a new era of employment. During the pandemic, Gravity worked with Bounce Forward to support local schools and young people and initiated a ‘Gravity Young People’s Design Competition’ in collaboration with MOBIE.
To date, Bounce Forward has trained 229 teachers across 10 schools, including; Bridgwater & Taunton College, Bridgwater & Taunton College Academy, Quantock Education Trust (4 schools), Puriton Primary, North Petherton Primary, Willowdown, North Newton Community Primary. Bounce Forward has also reached 215 local families through their ‘Raise Resilience’ online course.
In parallel with Bounce Forward, Gravity is driving further social value outcomes through its ‘Sphero’ initiative with Bridgwater United Football Club (BUFC) Community Trust, promoting STEM opportunities by using football as a medium to develop skills in coding and robotics.
Bridgwater and Taunton College Trust is one of the 17 schools involved from the outset of the Bounce Forward & Harry Kane Foundation partnership, it is the only Multi-Academy Trust at launch. Bounce Forward will work with all 6 schools within the trust (3 secondaries and 3 primaries) through a central strategy.
Gravity looks forward to exploring how our community stakeholders can achieve the optimum outcomes for young people through these exciting initiatives with Bounce Forward and BUFC.
This is Gravity, Director – Planning & Economic Development, Claire Pearce commented: “This announcement is a huge step forward for Bounce Forward and with a supportive institution such as the Harry Kane Foundation I’m sure that it will enable them to reach more young people and help equip them with skills needed to live happier healthier lives, the whole team at Gravity couldn’t be more pleased for them.
To have a local trust included in their launch given our introduction into their area is a huge boost and look forward to seeing what other initiatives local schools can be part of going forward.
Ensuring local young talent develops in a secure and nurturing environment that stimulates emotionally intelligent adults will be part of jigsaw of the requirements for a fulfilled and productive workforce at Gravity for years to come.”
Clare Lewis, Personal Development Lead at Bridgwater & Taunton Trust commented: “Healthy Minds will become an integral part of our Personal Development programme as we build our student’s confidence, resilience and knowledge so that they can keep themselves mentally healthy. The Bounce Forward programme will help to facilitate the development of skills and qualities that will enable our students to become independent and thrive in society.”
Bounce Forward CEO, Lucy Bailey commented: “When it comes to mental health, prevention is so much better than cure, and our psychological health is as important as physical health. It is increasingly challenging to navigate our changing and complex world. For adults, it is hard, for children it is even harder. We need to teach our children, as part of their core education, and there is no better way than with Healthy Minds. Teaching our children about the brain, the role of positive emotions and the value of optimism and human connection is vital learning for the world we live in. We need to help young people not only to deal well with the setbacks they will inevitably face throughout life, but also equip them to embrace opportunities around them. Its impressive evidence base includes improving attendance, which is of growing concern for schools reducing fixed term exclusions as well as improving health and wellbeing outcomes.”
Harry Kane commented: “I’m proud of the work my foundation has achieved over the last year and am excited that we will extend our reach and impact through a new partnership with Bounce Forward. Kate and I have worked closely with Bounce Forward to strengthen their curriculum. Together we have designed lesson plans that support young people to explore how resilience can help them recover from setbacks, deal with challenges and make the most of opportunities. We are supporting Bounce Forward because they are experts in their field and have developed evidence-based resources that align perfectly with our aim of promoting the benefits of positive self-belief and the connection between physical and mental health.”
