Expertise
Knowledge and specialist understanding isn’t always where it needs to be, and young people pay the cost.
Not-for-profit organisation · Supporting young people aged 15 to 30
Where others stop, we stand.
Stand For is a not-for-profit working with people aged 15 to 30, when expertise, desire, budget, or sometimes all three are missing from the system around them.
A UK not-for-profit organisation · Trusted by
Lighthouse Schools TrustPenwith CommunityCornwall TogetherTregarthen GroupYPF FoundationAtlantic Partners
Young people are let down, through a lack of expertise, desire, budget or sometimes all three.
Stand For exists for the young people who fall through those gaps. We listen. We work alongside them. We help them reach a fair outcome.
Desire
Even where help is possible, the willingness to fight a young person’s corner is often missing. We bring it.
Budget
Funding gaps block young people from the right support at the right moment. We work to find a way through.
Or all three
When expertise, desire and budget are absent at once, a young person is left with no one. That is when we step in.
Founder
Neil Tregarthen
Why Stand For exists
A founder who knows what it feels like to be the young person no one is fighting for.
“Nobody can help everybody, but everybody can help somebody.”
After an unhappy adolescence in Cornwall, Neil arrived in London for the first time on his 19th birthday, with £150, no job, and nowhere to live. A London cab driver and his wife gave him a chance: a camp bed in a small linen room until he could find work.
Forty years later, Neil returned to Cornwall, having built and sold a business with a turnover of more than US$1 billion. He created Stand For to do for young people exactly what that couple did for him.
These are not statistics. They are young people.
About Stand For
A not-for-profit organisation, supporting young people who have been let down by organisations that should know better.
STAND FOR is a not-for-profit organisation, which supports young people from 15 to 30 where others have let them down, either through a lack of expertise, desire, budget or sometimes all three.
To help young people access the appropriate support and assistance, which in turn, gives them the opportunity to be the best they can be.
STAND FOR’s mission is to empower and support young people to ensure they get their fair chance.
Nobody can help everybody, but everybody can help somebody.
Voice. Mentorship. Resolution.
We analyse the individual challenge, work with the young person to agree a resolution, and then support them in delivering the right outcome.
We give the young person a voice
We make sure the young person we’re working with is heard, by the people, services and institutions who haven’t been listening.
We mentor and support
We mentor, and where appropriate provide financial support, so the young person isn’t carrying the load alone.
We analyse and resolve
We work with the young person to analyse their individual challenge, agree a resolution, and support them in delivering the right outcome.
This is what that work looks like, in real young people’s lives.
The Stand For Family
Real young people. Real outcomes.
These are the young people Stand For has stood beside, in their own words.
Advocacy
“STAND FOR helped me fight my corner.”
Lauren has Cerebral Palsy and relies on a second skin body suit to support her spine. When access to funding was about to be removed, Stand For stepped in to help her fight her corner.
Family Support
“Without STAND FOR, I dread to think where we would be now.”
In October 2011, Howard suffered a massive brain stem stroke that left him able to move only his eyelids. Stand For supported his family and helped establish a trust.
Advocacy
“STAND FOR challenged the ‘no’ and made it a ‘yes’, which is why my three young children still have their mum.”
A 42-year-old single mum raising three children while working. After the NHS deemed her gallstone inoperable, Stand For arranged specialist private surgery in London.
“STAND FOR gave us hope. We felt listened to and cared for, when we both felt lost and alone.”
Stand with us
Help a young person get their fair chance.
Talk to the team about supporting Stand For, whether that’s a direct contribution or by referring a young person we may be able to help.