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Improving young people’s wellbeing: Adam’s story

3rd February 2025
This Children’s Mental Health Week, we’re showcasing an example of how CashBack projects support young people to improve their wellbeing.

Supporting young people who are most at risk of involvement in the justice system to improve their wellbeing is one of the key aims of the CashBack programme. Each of our partners achieves this in some way – for more information, see the CashBack Logic Model. In support of Children’s Mental Health Week we’re featuring an example of Bethany Christian Trust’s approach and the difference it can make.

Bethany’s CashBack project is called Bethany UpStream with CashBack for Communities. It is a community-based early intervention support service for young people with mental health struggles. The project aims to improve mental health and reduce risk factors of homelessness taking root in young people’s lives, including: trauma, bereavement and relationship breakdown.

Take a closer look at the impact this project has had with one young participant.

Two people walking down corridor
Photo credit: Liam Rotheram

Adam’s story

Adam first joined the UpStream programme after being nominated by his GP.

Bethany Counsellor Elena shares: “On meeting with Adam and during the assessment process, I learned that he had experienced many adverse childhood experiences [ACEs] growing up.” This was connected to his mother’s experience of addiction, and abuse and neglect he experienced while living with his grandmother including failure to carry out important tasks like taking him to school, making him food, and providing opportunities for activities and play.

Adam spent most of his childhood in his room playing video games.

As Adam got older, he started living with his great-grandmother, who provided a safer and more secure living environment. However, Adam struggled to attend school or make friends, and ended up leaving school early due to difficulties socialising.

Before starting with UpStream, Adam had left a college course prematurely because of difficulties interacting with other young people. He didn’t have any social contact outside of a few family members.

Open-ended, person-centred support

Bethany UpStream provides counselling and therapeutic interventions, as well as clinical psychology, for young people in Glasgow.

Using strengths-based approaches, Elena started the sessions trying to identify Adam’s strengths.

“Adam struggled to recognise his strengths, and instead noted strengths he would like to develop. This highlighted his low self-esteem and we decided to start with cognitive behavioural therapy [CBT] to help this. In the next phases of therapy, we jointly decided to use schema-informed therapy [which aims to change negative patterns or beliefs that people have lived with for a long time] to focus on his unmet needs growing up. After identifying his unmet needs Adam and I were able to discuss ways in which he can meet those needs for himself today.”

Over time, Adam went from the sessions being his only in-person contact to engaging in additional services to explore career opportunities, and exploring possible volunteering opportunities.

Adam actively participated in his therapeutic journey and has not missed one session in over a year.

Elena, Bethany UpStream counsellor

Elena believes it has been particularly important for Adam that Bethany UpStream are able to provide open-ended sessions.

“With Adam’s experience with ACEs, short-term therapy would have not given him the time and space to process his disconnection from people and his social isolation. The extended sessions and options to attend various groups by UpStream Communities provided the necessary therapeutic engagement for Adam to reach his goals.”

Building confidence and connections

Adam’s confidence with socialising has grown since joining the programme. He is increasingly comfortable sharing his sense of humour, which he was unable to do at the start of therapy.

He is also taking charge of meeting his unmet needs for adequate guidance, nourishment and self-care. Adam is cooking healthier food, taking part in physical activities, grooming himself and trying to go out of his comfort zone and do things he enjoys even though it is uncomfortable. He shared of his experience:

I went from not being able to talk to anybody to being able to talk to interviewers at the course just fine. Stick with it – you might not want to go at the start but a couple of weeks into it and you will want to go.

Adam, Bethany UpStream participant

More recently, Adam took the initiative to identify courses online he would like to apply for. Elena and Adam are currently working to prepare him for starting a college course.


Want to learn more?

  • Find out more about Bethany Christian Trust’s Bethany UpStream with CashBack for Communities project
  • For more examples of how CashBack projects support children and young people’s wellbeing, see our 23-24 impact report

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