A pivotal moment in childhood mental health 

Around 1 in 6 children and young people in the UK have a clinically diagnosable mental health disorder. 

Sadly, only 1 in 4 of these young people will receive the treatment they need, telling a story we don’t want to hear.  

Untreated, mental health problems in children can alter the course of their entire lives. Symptoms often persist into adult life with long-term effects including reduced education and employment opportunities, relationship problems and poorer overall health.

The recent challenges of the COVID pandemic and the impact of isolation from friends and disrupted education mean that children and families are experiencing extreme distress, exacerbating an already bleak picture. 

Your support will help build a pioneering centre that redefines how we care for growing minds  

Working together, King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust lead the world in approaches to mental health. Our ambition is to dramatically reduce the impact of youth mental health problems so that every young person enters adult life with good mental health.

It is this vision that has led to our plans for the  Pears Maudsley Centre for Children and Young People. The ground-breaking new Centre will bring together the largest group of mental health scientists in Europe, find new ways to predict, prevent, and treat mental health disorders and transform our understanding and treatment of conditions such as obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), anxiety, depression, autism and eating disorders. 

By donating to support the Centre today, you’ll be helping to improve and safeguard the mental health for an entire generation, and for generations to come. 

We truly appreciate the tremendous generosity shown by our alumni and donors and would like to recognise donations over £250 by including your name on a donor display in the Pears Maudsley Centre.*

Your support of the Pears Maudsley Centre will provide state of the art facilities for research that cares for every stage in a child’s development 

Our world-leading research will take a whole lifespan approach to mental health, addressing key stages in a child’s development, from conception to early adulthood, where research, prevention and intervention will make the most difference. We will:

• Treat and assess thousands of children a year, with an even greater impact through digital services
• Help greater numbers of young people with OCD, eliminating the need for inpatient support for severe OCD
• Reduce rates of eating disorders and significantly increase full recovery rates
• Support young people with autism to live happier and healthier lives through greater understanding, interventions and prevention
• Expand our schools’ programme to build support systems for pupils and identify mental health conditions sooner
• Share our expertise for the benefit of children nationally and internationally

By supporting the Pears Maudsley Centre for Children and Young People, you could help our world-renowned experts better understand, prevent and treat mental illness and help more young people get the support they need sooner.

• £250 could fund pioneering neuro-research facilities to allow young people with autism to live happier and healthier lives.
• £500 could help equip our centre with virtual reality therapies to help young people with anxiety, eating disorders or OCD.
• £1,000 could provide the space for digital experts to explore how we share our expertise with schools to help pupils build their resilience and deal with academic or personal stresses.

Recognising your generosity

The name you provide, as the donor, will be used on the donor display at the Centre. Alternatively, if you would like to use your space on the donor wall to honour and remember a loved one instead, please contact giving@kcl.ac.uk to find out more about this option. 

If you would like for your gift to remain anonymous, please tick the relevant box when making your donation. 

If you would like to speak to someone about making a major gift of £5,000 or more, and the opportunities for recognition in the Centre, please contact Seren Bradshaw: seren.bradshaw@kcl.ac.uk. Thank you for your generosity.

*Please note that the opportunity to be included in the physical donor installation remains open until 31st May 2023. The spaces might fill up before then and are allocated on a first-come first-serve basis. We will endeavour to adjust the installation to fit in every donor at the correct level, but will notify you if this is not possible. Please donate early to avoid disappointment. The design & location of the donor installation are subject to final approval, which will be granted once the opportunity to participate has closed in May 2023. In the unlikely event that there should be any significant changes to the donor installation, we will notify all donors as soon as this becomes apparent.