Spark UK was born from a rant in a coffee shop with friends.

In December 2020, four teenagers met in a North Devon coffee shop and started talking about mental health education. Or, more honestly, ranting about the ‘early 2000 BBC three documentaries’ that no young people actually enjoyed watching in PSHE.

We’d met through a mental health ambassador scheme at school. We cared about the subject, but felt that what we were being taught didn’t always match what young people were actually going through.

We wanted more honest conversations, more relevant resources and more people talking openly about their experiences. After about an hour of putting the world to rights, Conor, who was 14 at the time, suggested we have a go at doing something ourselves.

That was the start of Spark UK.

Figuring it out as we went.

There wasn’t a grand plan. We were a group of friends from North Devon trying to make something useful while keeping up with schoolwork.

We started creating resources and delivering school workshops, drawing on our own experiences to connect with other young people. We didn’t have all the answers, but we knew how much difference a relatable conversation could make.

One of our early ideas was the All Star Advent Calendar, sharing daily messages about mental health and wellbeing from familiar faces. Over six years, people including Sir Stephen Fry, Dame Judi Dench and Dame Emma Thompson got involved.

Getting those messages into classrooms was exciting. So was seeing an idea we’d talked about over coffee become something schools could actually use.

Things grew from there.

Over time, we worked with more schools, brought new people into the team and built partnerships with organisations including BAFTA.

There have been some fairly surreal moments along the way. Being named Coronation Champions and attending the Coronation Concert wasn’t something we’d imagined when we started. Neither was talking about Spark on national television.

But a lot of running Spark is much less glamorous: sending emails, chasing replies, rewriting resources and working out how to turn an ambitious idea into something we can deliver.

We’ve learned a lot, and we’re still learning.

Becoming a charity.

In August 2025, Spark UK became a registered charity. That felt like a big moment for something that had started as a conversation between school friends.

Our mission stayed the same: to spark conversations around mental health. Becoming a charity helped us build a stronger foundation for the work ahead.

Today, that work includes Spark Schools , where schools, home educators and young people can find mental health and wellbeing resources.

We’re also developing Spark Youth, a platform for 16–25-year-olds bringing together wellbeing, life skills and opportunities, and Sparkie & Friends, which helps younger children explore self-care through stories and activities.

Alongside that, we’re creating training for adults who work with young people, bringing young people’s experiences into research and working with partners on projects such as the Happy Confident Summit.

Still for young people, by young people

Spark has changed since 2020. People have joined, projects have grown and we’ve got better at understanding what it takes to run a charity.

Being youth-led still matters to us. Young people help shape our work through our team and youth advisory group, and we want them to feel able to question things, suggest ideas and tell us when something could be better.

We know a resource or workshop can’t solve everything someone is going through. But it can help them understand how they’re feeling, start a conversation or find the right support.

That’s what we’re here to do. And it’s what we were getting at in that coffee shop, even if we didn’t quite have the words for it yet.