With Christmas just days away, Kate Middleton and Prince William couldn’t keep still. They interrupted their holiday in Norfolk to help a local mental health charity and confirmed their partnership with Norfolk and Waveney Mind – together they are set to launch a new programme to support rural and farming communities in the region. The programme will also apply to anyone living on the Sandringham Estate. This is where the royal family usually celebrate Christmas.
The programme, which will start next year and run until 2027, aims to create two new posts. These are the posts of a rural mental health co-ordinator and a counsellor. Their work will focus on developing and delivering targeted sessions for parents and young children, as well as for women and men. These will run alongside additional individual counselling and sessions.
It is claimed that Kate and William have undertaken to co-fund the project from their own money.
‘We are very aware of the specific mental health issues faced by people in rural areas, particularly in farming communities, so are delighted to be working with the Prince and Princess of Wales, who know north-west Norfolk well,’ says Sonia Chilvers, interim chief executive of Norfolk and Waveney Mind.
The royal couple have long been interested in mental health issues. Last year, marking World Mental Health Day at an event in Birmingham, Kate said everyone deserves happiness.
‘Just talking about mental health is not enough,’ she said at the Birmingham event. – ‘William and I believe that as a society we should be doing everything we can to help young people develop the emotional and social skills they need to have good mental health and succeed in the world around them. Exploring the world and learning how to be happy and thrive in it should go hand in hand.’
