Big Love Youth Projects CIC

Increasing access to emotional wellbeing support for children and young people

About us

WHO WE ARE

Children’s emotional experiences are often misunderstood or minimised — particularly when stress or anxiety doesn’t have an obvious external cause.

Children’s nervous systems are still developing, yet they are frequently expected to self-regulate without consistent, attuned relational support. Emotional regulation is not an innate skill; it is learned through safe relationships, repeated co-regulation, and compassionate guidance over time.

Big Love Youth Projects CIC exists to address this gap — ensuring children and young people have access to emotionally supportive environments where regulation is taught within relationship, not expected in isolation.

The gap our work addresses…

Children are fully capable of experiencing intense emotional states — including anxiety, fear, overwhelm, grief, and stress — often without the language, relational safety, or support needed to make sense of them.

What is commonly underestimated is not children’s emotions, but:

  • how deeply they feel

  • how early stress can impact the nervous system

  • how much emotional safety depends on relationships, not tools alone

As a result, many children are expected to manage emotional experiences independently, before they have been shown how regulation is learned, modelled, or supported.

What’s often missing

Children do not learn emotional regulation on their own.

They learn through:

  • co-regulation

  • relational attunement

  • repeated experiences of being seen, soothed, and supported

Many parents, carers, and educators are deeply committed, yet:

  • were not taught these skills themselves

  • grew up in times of emotional silence or stigma

  • are navigating their own stress and nervous-system overload

This can leave children without consistent models of regulation, even in caring environments.
For children living with trauma — or being raised by overwhelmed or traumatised adults — this gap can be even wider.

What Big Love Youth Projects CIC does differently

Big Love Youth Projects CIC exists to remove barriers to emotionally informed, trauma-aware wellbeing support.

Our approach:

  • treats children as emotionally capable humans, not “too young to understand”

  • centres co-regulation and relational safety, not behaviour management

  • builds emotional language through the body, not just words

  • supports adults (parents, carers, teachers) to understand their role in regulation

  • acknowledges the impact of trauma — both direct and intergenerational

  • adapts for neurodivergent children and SEND needs

We do not ask children to regulate alone.
We support emotional learning within relationship — where real change happens.

How Big Love Youth Projects works

Big Love Youth Projects CIC does not exist to sell services.

The CIC:

  • secures funding and partnerships

  • supports free or subsidised access to emotional wellbeing programmes

  • enables delivery in schools, communities, and family settings

  • responds to local need through funded and pilot projects

Programme delivery is carried out in partnership with Big Love Movement Ltd, ensuring professional standards, safeguarding, and continuity of care.

The CIC enables access. Delivery partners ensure quality.

Big Love Youth Projects supports access to programmes for:

  • Early Years through Key Stage 2

  • Primary schools

  • Community and family settings

  • Parent–child workshops

  • Schools and organisations supporting children affected by stress, trauma, SEND, or neurodivergence

Projects evolve in response to funding, partnerships, and community need.

What changes when this support is in place

When children are met with understanding and relational safety:

  • they feel safer expressing how they feel

  • emotional experiences are validated rather than minimised

  • regulation is learned through connection, not control

  • parents gain insight into their child’s nervous system — and their own

  • behaviour is understood as communication, not defiance

  • emotional literacy grows alongside trust and confidence

The impact extends beyond sessions — into homes, classrooms, and relationships.

IMPACT

Why this matters now

While awareness of mental health has grown, understanding of how emotional regulation is learned has not kept pace.

Children are growing up within an increasingly intense emotional landscape:

  • heightened sensory input

  • constant comparison and digital exposure

  • rising SEND and neurodiversity recognition

  • widespread parental stress and burnout

While awareness of mental health has grown, understanding of how emotional regulation is learned has not kept pace.

Big Love Youth Projects CIC exists to bridge that gap — compassionately, accessibly, and safely.

Partnerships & Support

We welcome connection with:

  • schools and education settings

  • community organisations

  • funders and grant-makers

  • services aligned with trauma-aware, relational practice

If you’re interested in partnering, funding access, or exploring a community need, we’d love to hear from you.

➡️ Get in touch to start a conversation

Big Love Youth Projects CIC is a UK registered Community Interest Company. Programme delivery is provided by Big Love Movement Ltd.