Establish structured, school-connected support pathways that normalise mental health and enable early intervention.
SAFE SPACES FOUNDATION
PILOT PROPOSAL • 2026
Building Kenya's First School-Based Mental Health Infrastructure
A partnership proposal to pilot a Prevent → Identify → Support → Refer model in 5–10 Nairobi schools
01 — 12
ABOUT SAFE SPACES FOUNDATION
A School-Connected Approach
to Child Wellbeing
Building the conditions for children to thrive.
Children experience emotional and psychological challenges, yet the adults and institutions around them may lack clear ways to recognise concerns early or connect children to appropriate services.
Safe Spaces Foundation is being developed to address this gap through school-based mental-health education, teacher capacity-building, parent engagement, psychosocial support, and structured referral pathways.
A Kenya where every child learns in an environment equipped to recognise, support, and safeguard emotional wellbeing.
“The goal is not to turn schools into clinics. It is to help schools recognise needs early and connect children to the right support.”OUR PHILOSOPHY
THE CHALLENGE
The Problem
We're Solving
Children across Kenya face real emotional and psychological challenges — but the system around them isn't built to catch problems early or connect them to the right support.
“We don't start from ‘children need therapy.’ We start from a more precise diagnosis:”
Problems are not identified early, and access to appropriate support is limited — even though the emotional and psychological need is real.
PREVENT
Teach emotional skills before there's a crisis
IDENTIFY
Help teachers & parents recognize warning signs
SUPPORT
Provide safe, age-appropriate support in school
REFER
Build a clear pathway to qualified professionals
PROGRAMME ARCHITECTURE
The School Is the
Distribution Network
Instead of asking children to find their way to a mental-health centre, we bring the programme to where every child already is.
PROGRAMME
→SCHOOLS
→CHILDREN
The organization provides the infrastructure — schools provide the access point.
WHAT WE PROVIDE
A complete school-based infrastructure
Mental-health curriculum
Teacher training
Parent education
Student wellbeing activities
Screening & early ID protocols
Counselling / psychosocial support
Referral pathways
Crisis-response protocols
Monitoring & reporting
A PROPORTIONATE MODEL
A Three-Tier System of Care
The most important design decision: not every child needs the same level of support.
TIER 1 UNIVERSAL
01
Every Child
Universal programme: mental-health education, emotional-literacy activities, resilience skills, anti-bullying and help-seeking education. Reduces stigma because everyone takes part.
TIER 2 ADDITIONAL SUPPORT
02
Additional Support
For children showing difficulty — withdrawal, behavioural change, bereavement, bullying — but not requiring psychiatric care. Small-group and individual psychosocial support, parent engagement, follow-up.
TIER 3 SPECIALIST
03
Clinical Need
Children requiring qualified professional intervention. We identify, refer, track and follow up — without replacing psychologists, psychiatrists, or hospitals.
WHO WE SERVE
Built Around Three Users,
Not One
A model of “Child + School + Family” — not simply “mental-health services for children.”
01 / THE CHILD
Child
Needs knowledge, support, and a safe way to ask for help.
02 / THE SCHOOL
School
Needs trained adults, clear protocols, and a working referral system.
03 / THE FAMILY
Parent
Needs education and guidance to recognize and respond to problems.
CURRICULUM DESIGN
One Programme,
Two Age Bands
A six-year-old and a 17-year-old can't receive the same intervention — so the curriculum is built for each stage of childhood. The learning resources are designed to align with Kenya's Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC).
01 / PRIMARY SCHOOL · AGES 6–12Emotional literacy
Emotional literacy
& resilience
Giving children vocabulary and tools, not making them psychologists.
- Understanding & naming emotions
- Managing anger
- Friendship & conflict
- Bullying and self-esteem
- Asking for help
- Grief, loss & family change
- Safe vs. unsafe situations
02 / SECONDARY SCHOOL · AGES 13–18Identity, pressure
Identity, pressure
& asking for help
A more sophisticated programme built around the question: “When should I ask for help?”
- Identity & self-esteem
- Peer & academic pressure
- Relationships & body image
- Bullying / cyberbullying
- Anxiety, stress & grief
- Substance-use prevention
- Suicide / self-harm awareness
DELIVERY MODEL
Teachers Are the Scalable Engine
Training 10 teachers per school scales further than employing hundreds of counsellors — without turning teachers into therapists.
RECOGNIZE
“Something has changed.”
RESPOND
“I know what to say — and what not to.”
REFER
“I know who handles this.”
SAFEGUARD
“I know when to escalate immediately.”
THE BRIDGE, NOT THE CLINICIAN
School Mental Health Champions
Designated staff with deeper training who coordinate wellbeing activities, receive concerns, connect students to support, maintain referral protocols, liaise with parents and the programme, and monitor school-level trends. They are the bridge — not clinicians.
SAFEGUARDING & REFERRAL
A Vetted Network —
Not a Guessing Game
No school should have to figure out on its own where to send a child in need.
Psychologists
Psychiatrists
Hospitals
Child-Protection
Services
Services
Specialist
Services
Services
Negotiated at programme rates — effectively a mental-health referral network built for schools.
FAMILY ENGAGEMENT
Parents are part of the system — not bystanders
Periodic Parent Mental Health Sessions cover understanding children's behaviour, communicating with teenagers, warning signs, bullying, academic pressure, social media, grief, and when and how to access professional help.
This keeps the programme from ever feeling like “the school is diagnosing my child” — parents become co-owners of the support system.
THE PILOT PROPOSAL
The Ask: Fund a 5–10 School Pilot
Before scaling, we need to prove the model works inside an ordinary Kenyan school — across different socioeconomic settings.
Public Primary
Public Secondary
Low-Cost Private
Higher-Income Private
WHAT THE PILOT DELIVERS, END TO END
Define problem & age groups
Design intervention
Build safeguarding framework
Select school & clinical partners
Launch in 5–10 schools
Measure outcomes
Refine the model
This is a proposal to build and test the model with school and clinical partners.
Support the pilot ↗EVALUATION FRAMEWORK
What We'll Measure
Seven dimensions define whether the model is working — including cost per child, from day one.
Reach
How many children participate?
Knowledge
Do children understand mental health better?
Help-Seeking
Are children more likely to ask for appropriate help?
Identification
Are schools spotting concerns earlier?
Referral
How many children who need specialist care reach it?
Outcomes
Improvement on validated wellbeing measures
Economics
What does it cost per child?
This number becomes extremely important for scaling.SUSTAINABILITY
A Funding Model Built to Last
Safe Spaces Foundation is not designed to depend permanently on donations.
FOUNDATION
Institutional Funding
Grants, foundations, and development organizations — the base for this pilot phase.
PARTNERSHIP
Corporate Partnership
Companies sponsor mental-health support for a set of schools through CSR / ESG — the role we're proposing here.
PROPOSED ROLE FOR YOUSUSTAINABLE REVENUE
School Contribution
Private schools pay for the programme; that revenue helps cross-subsidize public schools.
LET'S BUILD THE PILOT
Partner with
Safe Spaces
Help us test a school-based model designed to make early support more accessible for children in Kenya.
01 Corporate sponsorship
02 Institutional funding
03 School or clinical partnership
THE LONG-TERM AMBITION
From One School
to a National System
“Every child deserves access to mental-health education, early identification and appropriate support — regardless of their family's ability to pay.”
SCHOOL
→COUNTY
→NAIROBI
→KENYA
The real asset isn't the NGO registration — it's a proven programme model. Your partnership funds the proof.
LET'S BUILD THE PILOT TOGETHER ↗Safe Spaces Foundation • Nairobi, Kenya