Team Daniel Partner with the Knights
We are so pleased to introduce a new member of the Leeds Knights family, local charity Team Daniel. This wonderful small charity, run by Leeds Knights supporters, does some amazing work with young children in the local community. It is very fitting for us to announce this new partnership with November being Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month and the 19th being International Men’s Day.
We would like to share Daniel’s story, written by his mother Emma: In February 2017 Daniel took his own life due to the impending stress of his GCSEs at the age of 15.
During school Daniel was always the class clown, making his friends laugh as well as the whole class. Not long after Christmas Daniel was due to start sitting his mocks in February.
In the few weeks before Daniel died his whole demeanour had changed, he stopped going out with his friends, he became withdrawn and quiet and spent more time in his bedroom revising.
I had numerous conversations with Daniel to reassure him that GCSEs wasn’t the be all and end all, despite all this I didn’t realise how much pressure he felt.
Daniel went on to save 5 other lives as his organs were donated
In January 2020 I set up a registered charity called team Daniel and we now raise awareness of suicide in young people, we currently run a GCSE revision group where young people can come along and revise in a non-pressured environment and two youth nights where we have gone back to basics and play traditional board games, arts and crafts, we hold workshops such as anti-bullying, and again it’s a safe space for young people where we have around 30 young people from the age of 11-15years of age each week.
We always tell everyone that comes along to our groups that if we work as team, we can get through anything there is no shame in showing your emotions, suicide is a long-term solution to short a lived problem.
Our feedback from parents have been amazing so we know we must be doing something right.
Verity Thomas, Partnership Manager at the Knights said “Launching this charity and providing guidance and support to so many young children is testament to how amazingly strong this family are. We are honoured that they have chosen us to share Daniel’s story and to help raise awareness of their charity.”
Team Daniel are proud sponsors of the Away Penalty Box and will be carrying out a bucket collection at a fixture in the New Year. In the meantime, please give them a follow on social media and visit www.teamdaniel.org.uk for more information on the great work they do!
