MAC-UK

Our vision is the radical transformation of mental health service delivery for excluded young people who offend or are at risk of offending. Our mission is to take mental health services out of the clinic and into the community with young people for young people. For mental health to be at the heart of all interventions and services for excluded young people. To effectively campaign for recognition that serious youth violence is a mental health issue as much as a justice one.

Working together with a group of young people who found themselves involved in gangs, Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Charlie Howard (formerly Alcock), founded MAC-UK in 2008. Charlie wanted to use a youth-led approach to make mental health accessible to excluded young people within their own community. Her aim was to work with young people to find new answers to the complex problem of youth offending. Her approach grew from working alongside young people in Camden and, with the belief that there was a better way of delivering mental health support, she took the stance that young people are the experts in their own experiences. What emerged was the Integrate model, putting mental health workers at the heart of activities led by the young people themselves. MAC-UK is now recognised at a local and national level. We have just started our fourth Integrate pilot site, which is funded by the Big Lottery Fund, and are working in partnership with various services in London to place Integrate staff into a range of programmes.