Passing Down Wisdom: Helping Young People Navigate Mental Health and Support ​

Passing Down Wisdom: Helping Young People Navigate Mental Health and Support

When we talk about preparing young people for the future, the conversation usually centres on qualifications, practical skills and employment. We ask whether they can pass the course, use the tools correctly, follow instructions and become ready for work. Those things matter, particularly in construction, where competence and safety cannot be taken lightly, but they are only part of what a young person will need when they step into adult life.

They will also need to understand pressure, disappointment, money, relationships, identity and what to do when their mental health begins to change. They need to know that asking for help is allowed, that one setback does not define them and that there is more than one route towards a meaningful life.

I know this because I did not leave school with a clear plan or a strong belief in myself. I failed my GCSEs and carried experiences from childhood that I did not know how to process. I had been bullied, experienced poverty and grown up without my dad, who died when I was very young. At that age, I did not have the language to explain what any of it had done to me. I simply thought I needed to get on with life.

I went on to become an electrician, spent around 16 years in construction, built a business and eventually created Onward Shift. From the outside, those steps may look like a straightforward success story. They were not. There were periods of anxiety, suicidal thoughts and feeling as though I did not quite fit anywhere. I was later diagnosed with ADHD and OCD, and therapy helped me understand parts of myself that I had spent years judging.

When I now stand in front of construction students, I do not want to present myself as the person who has everything worked out. I want to be the person I could have listened to when I was their age: somebody who understands the industry, speaks honestly about what went wrong and can show that life is rarely decided by one result, one mistake or one difficult period.

That is what passing down wisdom means to me. It is not telling young people how to live. It is sharing enough of what we have learned to help them make their own decisions with a little more understanding and a little less shame.

Young People Are Carrying More Than We Can See

It is easy to look at a student who is late, distracted, quiet or difficult and decide that they lack motivation. The behaviour is visible, but the reason behind it often is not.

One young person may be caring for somebody at home. Another may be worried about money, housing or whether there will be work after college. Somebody else may be trying to understand their sexuality, struggling with bullying or living with anxiety they have never spoken about. A student who seems uninterested may be exhausted. The one who jokes through every lesson may be using humour to keep people away from what they are really feeling.

The latest full NHS England survey of children and young people’s mental health found that around one in five people aged 8 to 25 had a probable mental disorder in 2023. The figures were 20.3% among 8 to 16-year-olds, 23.3% among 17 to 19-year-olds and 21.7% among 20 to 25-year-olds.

Those figures do not mean every difficult emotion needs a label. They show why mental health cannot be left until somebody is already in crisis. For a college or training provider, wellbeing is connected to attendance, learning and progression. A young person who does not feel safe or hopeful about the future may struggle to engage even when they have the ability to succeed.

This is particularly relevant to construction education. Students are not only learning a trade; they are preparing to enter an industry known for early starts, physical demands, travel, uncertain workloads, workplace banter and strong expectations around getting on with the job. If we want the culture of construction to improve, those conversations should begin before somebody reaches their first site.

Wisdom Begins With Listening

Adults sometimes approach young people with a complete speech already prepared. We remember our own mistakes and want to prevent the next generation from repeating them, so we start giving answers before we have understood the question.

The intention may be good, but advice is difficult to hear when somebody does not first feel heard.

Young people do not need every adult to become a counsellor. They need adults who can slow down, ask what is happening and listen without immediately turning the conversation into a lecture. Sometimes the most useful response is not, “When I was your age,” but, “Tell me more about what this is like for you.”

The pressures young people face are not identical to those we experienced. Social media, online bullying, the cost of living and uncertainty about housing and careers all shape their world. Dismissing those pressures because they look different from ours only makes honest conversation less likely.

Government guidance published in the 2026 Social Connection Framework highlights the role that trusted adults and meaningful relationships can play in supporting boys and young men. It also reports that one in four boys and young men aged 11 to 24 feel lonely at least some of the time. In a male-dominated pathway such as construction, connection deserves as much attention as confidence or technical skill.

A trusted adult does not need a perfect answer. A tutor who notices a change, a lecturer who stays behind for five minutes, a mentor who shares an honest mistake or a site supervisor who remembers what it felt like to be the new apprentice may all become important points of connection. What matters is that the young person believes the conversation is safe and that asking for help will not be used against them.

The Advice I Needed After Failing My GCSEs

When I failed my GCSEs, it would have been easy to believe that I had already fallen behind. Education can sometimes make life feel as though there is one correct route and one timetable. If you do well, you move forward. If you struggle, it can feel as though everybody else has left without you

What I needed to hear was that a result describes what happened in one part of my life; it does not describe my full ability or future value.

Becoming an electrician gave me a different way to learn. Practical work made sense to me. I could see a problem, understand a system and create something real. Over time, I developed skills, worked with customers, managed jobs and built a business. None of that erased the difficulty I had at school, but it showed that the difficulty was not the whole story.

Construction can offer a valuable route because the industry needs different types of thinkers: people who solve practical problems, notice detail, communicate well, work with their hands and remain calm when plans change. Academic ability matters, but it is not the only form of intelligence.

We should avoid replacing one form of pressure with another. Young people do not need to know their entire future today. They can learn, change direction, make mistakes and build confidence through experience.

Investing in yourself does not have to mean chasing endless qualifications or turning every hobby into an achievement. It may mean learning a trade, understanding your mental health, improving how you communicate or finding out what helps you feel settled. It could involve therapy, coaching, exercise, reading, mentoring or simply spending time with people who bring out a healthier version of you. The value lies in knowing yourself better, not in creating another standard to measure yourself against.

Mental Health Education Should Come Before Crisis

Many adults first learn about mental health when something has already gone badly wrong. We discover anxiety after months of physical symptoms, understand depression only when getting through the day has become difficult or think about counselling when we have run out of other options.

Young people deserve the opportunity to learn earlier.

Mental health education should help them notice changes in sleep, mood, concentration, behaviour and relationships without encouraging them to diagnose themselves from a short video online. It should explain that emotions are normal, while also making clear that persistent distress deserves attention. Most importantly, it should show them where support is, what asking for help might look like and what happens after they speak up.

NHS England’s 2023 survey found that only 55.4% of young people who had concerns about their mental health said they had sought help or advice. That leaves a large gap between recognising a concern and reaching somebody who may be able to help.

Part of that gap may be uncertainty. A poster might say support is available, but a student may still wonder who will be told, whether they will be judged or if their problem is serious enough. Services become more approachable when people explain them clearly and repeatedly.

Lived experience can make those conversations real. When I speak about anxiety, ADHD, OCD, suicidal thoughts and therapy, I am not sharing them for shock or sympathy. I am showing that a person can struggle, receive support and continue to build a life. My route will not suit everybody, but it may give somebody permission to look for their own support.

That permission can be powerful in construction, where young people quickly learn which behaviours earn approval. If their first experience of site culture tells them to hide pain, laugh off stress and never admit uncertainty, silence can become a habit that follows them throughout their career. If they see respected tradespeople, lecturers and leaders discussing mental health without embarrassment, they learn something different.

Letting Go Without Pretending the Past Did Not Happen

The phrase “let it go” is often offered as though painful experiences can be dropped by choice. Real life is more complicated.

Letting go does not mean pretending something did not hurt, forgiving somebody before you are ready or finding a positive lesson in every bad experience. Sometimes the first step is accepting that the experience affected you and that support may be needed to process it.

My childhood shaped me. Losing my dad, growing up with financial difficulties, being bullied and witnessing domestic violence did not disappear when I became an adult. For years, some of those experiences influenced my anxiety, self-worth and how I responded to situations without me fully understanding why.

Therapy helped me look at the past without allowing it to control every decision in the present. It meant recognising the patterns I had developed to survive and deciding which no longer helped me.

Resilience is not the ability to absorb endless pain without reacting. It is the ability to adapt, recover and seek support, while acknowledging that some experiences are genuinely difficult and unfair.

We can encourage hope without rushing somebody through what they feel.

Accepting What We Cannot Control Without Giving Up

Another lesson that took me time to understand is the difference between responsibility and control.

Young people are often told that their future is entirely in their hands. Personal choices matter, but this message can become harsh when it ignores circumstances. A student can work hard and still face discrimination, illness, family pressure, financial difficulty or a lack of opportunity. Telling them that every outcome is the result of their mindset can turn a difficult situation into personal blame.

The more useful lesson is to separate what we can influence from what we cannot. We may not control another person’s opinion, a company’s decision or what happened in childhood. We can ask for advice, develop a skill, try another route, set a boundary or change how we respond.

This is not about passive acceptance. It is about using energy where it has a genuine chance of helping. Sometimes that means persistence. Sometimes it means walking away, changing the plan or admitting that support is needed.

A healthy growth mindset should leave room for limits. Failure can teach us something, but not every setback needs to become a motivational story. Sometimes we are disappointed, tired or angry before we are ready to learn. Young people need permission to experience those feelings without believing they have failed at resilience as well.

Asking for Support Is a Life Skill

Independence is often presented as doing everything alone, yet adult life repeatedly shows us that progress depends on other people. We learn from teachers, colleagues, mentors, family members and professionals. We rely on teams at work and relationships at home. Knowing when to reach out is part of becoming more capable, not evidence that we are incapable.

The challenge is that asking for help requires several things at once. A young person must recognise that something is wrong, believe they deserve support, know who to approach and trust that the response will be respectful. If any one of those pieces is missing, silence becomes easier.

Adults influence that decision through the way we respond to smaller disclosures. If a student says they are overwhelmed and we dismiss it as laziness, they may not return with the larger problem. If an apprentice admits a mistake and is humiliated in front of the team, they learn to hide the next one. The everyday culture around questions, uncertainty and emotion determines whether people speak when the stakes are higher.

Support also needs more than one route. Some young people will speak in a private conversation. Others may first connect with a podcast, blog or talk because listening feels safer than responding. A group discussion may work for one student and feel exposing to another. Providing different entry points allows people to move at a pace that feels possible.

That thinking sits at the centre of Onward Shift’s support for education. We work with students and education providers through lived-experience keynote talks, coaching, counselling, student toolbox talks and practical resources. Our free mental health resources also include blogs, podcasts and newsletters that can be shared without asking a young person to immediately identify themselves as struggling.

The aim is not to tell education providers that they are doing everything wrong. Tutors, lecturers and support teams are already carrying significant responsibility, often with limited time and resources. Onward Shift can add a construction-specific voice that helps students connect mental health with the industry they are preparing to enter.

Preparing Young People for Construction Means Preparing the Industry Too

We cannot teach students to speak honestly and then send them into workplaces that punish honesty. Passing down wisdom is only meaningful if the industry is prepared to receive the next generation differently.

Employers have an opportunity to shape that first experience. A supervisor can explain expectations without humiliating somebody who is learning. A team can challenge banter that crosses into bullying. Managers can make support visible, check in after mistakes and show that asking a safety or mental health question is responsible.

Experienced workers also carry knowledge that cannot be found in a textbook. They understand the pressure of a delayed job, the frustration of difficult clients, the reality of working away and the pride that comes from developing a trade. Sharing those experiences honestly helps young people prepare for the whole job rather than an idealised version of it.

That honesty should include the positive side of construction as well. It can provide purpose, friendship, creativity, financial independence and the satisfaction of seeing what you have built. I have met some of the kindest and most generous people through this industry. Supporting mental health is not about telling young people construction will damage them; it is about giving them the knowledge and relationships that can help them remain well within it.

The Wisdom Worth Passing On

If I could speak to my younger self, I would not give him a perfect plan. I would tell him that failing his GCSEs did not make him a failure, that the way his mind worked would eventually make more sense and that he did not have to wait until life felt unbearable before asking for help.

I would tell him that becoming an electrician would teach him more than a trade, that therapy would change the way he understood himself and that some of the experiences he felt ashamed of would one day help him connect with other people.

Most of all, I would tell him that his life did not need to look like anybody else’s to have value.

That is the wisdom I want Onward Shift to pass on. Young people do not need us to remove every obstacle or pretend we know exactly what their future should be. They need honest information, patient adults, visible support and room to become themselves.

We cannot guarantee that the next generation will avoid pain, mistakes or uncertainty. We can make sure they do not enter those experiences believing they have to face them alone.