TALK2NISH PEER MENTORS ANNUAL REPORT 2026 APRIL 2025 TO APRIL 2026 REGISTRATION NUMBER: 1206747
REGISTERED ADDRESS: 19 BLUEMANS, NORTH WEALD, ESSEX CM16 6EU
PREPARED BY: MANDY GARNER
Introduction
Talk2Nish Peer Mentors is a peer to peer wellbeing mentoring programme for schools in England and complies with the law of England & Wales. It involves training school staff and students to deal with students’ wellbeing issues, to talk to them in the first instance and signpost them to help and advice. Initially focused on secondary schools, it functions similar to a mental health first aid programme in the workplace which trains employees to recognise the crucial warning signs of mental ill health and feel confident to guide someone to appropriate support.
The idea is that young people may be more likely to talk about some of their problems to peers rather than authority figures such as teachers in the first instance. The programme will also encourage greater awareness in the school of mental health issues generally and of the issues that contribute to mental health problems, help reduce associated stigma, lead to increased self esteem and boost problem-solving skills and could reduce absence levels and improve academic performance.
Structure and people
Talk2Nish is a young and developing charity, which is currently run by the board and the coordinator with freelance support.
The board meets every 6-8 weeks.
The Trustees are:
Rebecca Lewis Stuart Shepherd, Treasurer Mandy Garner, Coordinator & Chair Arline Okin Annika Williams Salma Shah
Mandy Garner is the founder and coordinator and does all the day-to-day administrative tasks, including updating policies, reporting to the Charity Commission, coordinating training sessions, speaking to schools, updating the website and social media and promoting the charity.
The charity works with a freelance trainer, Yvette Dooley, from the Mental Health and Wellbeing Network and has this year hired Comfort Eboh, a part-time freelancer to work on fundraising and school liaison, who began work in late March. She is being paid through a grant from Essex Community Foundation.
From top left: Mandy Garner, Rebecca Lewis, Salma Shah, Arline Okin, Annika Williams and Stuart Shepherd
Over the last year, two of the original board members - Christine Barry and Jasmine Norton - have moved on, including the Chair, and Annika Williams has joined the board. Each member of the board brings a different skill and perspective to the team. Rebecca Lewis is a teacher. Stuart Shepherd runs his own IT business. Arline Okin and Annika Williams have years of experience working in different aspects of marketing. Mandy Garner has decades of experience as an education journalist and Salma Shah is a respected coach, focusing on diversity and inclusion
with a special interest in education. She works with employers, many of whom have a strong vested interest in the wellbeing of their future workforce.
The objectives of Talk2Nish Peer Mentors are:
To preserve and protect the good mental health of primary and secondary school-age children in England in particular by assisting, training and overseeing schools through the provision of peer mentoring and support programmes and other activities that raise awareness of mental health amongst the student population.
Activities and achievements 2025/26
The charity officially launched in June 2025 with a fundraising event and quiz held at Theydon Bois Village Hall. One of the mentors spoke at the event as did the Founder and we premiered our short video, telling our story. The event was hosted by Mirror journalist Darren Lewis. It raised £1.6K.
Talk2Nish has also been expanding its policy review, adding new policies on director induction, complaints handling and gambling awareness, and in September the charity conducted its annual safeguarding review. We also reviewed the training programme and, based on feedback, reduced it from two days to one by putting some of the background material onto apps for both mentors and coordinators. This includes regular reminders about the importance of mentors looking after their own mental health and on boundary setting. The apps have been built with safeguarding at the core and are all downloaded onto mentors’ phones in a way that is not hackable.
The charity also brought in money from several grant applications [see below Financial report].
Talk2Nish Peer Mentors has so far trained four cohorts of peer mentors at its pilot school, the Anglo European School in Essex. The fourth cohort is starting work now, having done a handover at a training session in April. The school has also been presented with our first Mentoring School certificate for its commitment to the programme. The new cohort also did an evaluation on the day of the training.
In January, training was delivered to around 40 mentors at St John’s School in Epping and we are following up for evaluation.
The charity has been working with Saffron Walden County High and Roding Valley School in Loughton and will be conducting training there over the summer. It was also named as a charity partner for Brainwaves’ national conference which takes place in July 2026.
The charity has been building its network in Essex through attending local events, speaking to organisations such as Active Essex and Epping Town Council and getting on the mailing list of likeminded bodies.
It has also been building its social media presence through establishing a regular posting system, creating videos for schools outlining how the programme works and posting videos from mentors.
The charity is now seeking funding to build a community hub of 3-4 schools in the Epping Forest area and to hold an event to bring them together to extend their skills and learn from each other.
It is also preparing a fundraising/awareness raising event for World Mental Health Day in October which is operating under the title Get active for mental health and involves people pledging to do some activity in the week of World Mental Health Day to raise money for the charity and posting about it online.
Financial report
In the past 12 months Talk2Nish Peer Mentors has returned a profit of £4,517.44, including remaining Qualis grant money to be spent.
Through the last 12 months we have raised approximately £2,026. This consists mainly of one-off donations(£530.55), including regular monthly donations (totalling around £210) plus the largest money-generating event in 2025, the launch party, which raised around £1.6K in profit. This excludes grant money raised.
The following grant bids were successful:
Stansted Airport Passenger Community Fund [£180.82] for lanyards and t-shirts
Epping Forest Lottery [£300 for lanyards and publicity materials]
Essex Community Foundation [£3.5K for a part-time freelance administrative assistant for six months]
Qualis [£4K to extend the pilot to three schools in the Epping Forest area]
Epping and Garnon Joint Charities to fund one round of training at St John’s School in Epping @£1,364.
Key outgoings were:
Essex Community Voluntary Youth Services membership - £20 DBS for directors - £76.80
Insurance for directors - £119.28
Training [Anglo] - £949 [covered by Qualis]
Other training has been allocated for new schools, including the £1,364 for training at St John’s, Epping in January and the hiring of an admin assistant through the Essex Community Foundation money
Info@ email - £132.48
Lanyards - £139.19 covered by Stansted Airport Passenger Community Fund Fundraising regulator - £60
Costs for the launch party are incorporated in the overall profit of £1.6K.
Income stands at £11, 370.82 for this period.
Outgoings are at £6,853.38, leaving a surplus of £4,517.44.
Training costs have decreased in line with the decrease from two to one days. Next year’s budget and strategy will be set in September.
Appendix
Recent social media posts include: