Cokethorpe is running a Sponsored Social Silence during lunchtime on Thursday 30th March to raise funds for The Lions Barber Collective.

From the moment staff and students join the dining hall queue inside the Sixth Form Centre on Thursday 30th March they will be asked to be silent and remain silent until they have left the dining hall at the end of their meal.

Silence is the focus of the event to highlight how isolating feelings of depression and despair can be to those who are struggling and feel they can't reach out to those around them for help. Running the event at a time of day that students usually catch up with friends and connect, felt particularly poignant.

The mission of the Lion's Barber Collective is to create non-clinical, non-judgemental safe spaces, in the form of established barbershops, where people feel comfortable to talk about their mental health, to then be supported and signposted by their barber to further help and information. They do this by creating awareness, interest and desire in barbers to train to be a Lion's Collective barber, while also ensuring the general public are aware of how to locate and book a haircut with a Lion's Collective barber as a discreet first step to seeking support.

Their overall vision is to develop a greater level of social acceptance surrounding the conversation of mental health & wellbeing, focusing especially on the acceptance of males seeking and receiving mental health support. All of their efforts in the areas of mental health education, development of support networks and raising awareness are centred on the aim of a world free from suicide.

Thank you for your support of the Cokethorpe Sponsored Social Silence.