Ben West

At just 21 years old Ben has already won a Pride of Britain Award, The Diana Award and the Mental Health Hero Award as part of the The Sun Who Cares initiative.

He has also spoken on ITV News and BBC Newsbeat, among others, about mental health and has previously worked closely with LinkedIn and their exciting new partnership called ‘Changemakers’.

The sudden and unexpected loss of his brother to suicide four years ago propelled Ben to take positive action from this tragedy and concentrate his pain into a drive to campaigning around mental health awareness and suicide prevention. Through his campaigning Ben strives to fundamentally change how we approach mental health, especially in schools and the education system. #SaveOutStudents has been one of the more recent campaigns he has initiated. The campaign involved creating a petition on change.org calling for mandatory training in mental health first aid for all educators caring for young people across the country. Surpassing the initial aim of 15,000 signatures within a day, the petition has reached over 200,000 signatures to date and planning is now taking place for the signature handover into 10 Downing Street.

Ben has since been made an ambassador for We Are Beyond and also sits on the board of Wagamama, where he supports their amazing Student Mental Health Awareness series: ‘Conversations off Campus’. Continuously working hard to shine a spotlight on young people’s mental health, he has also appeared on Sky & BBC News and has taken part in numerous panels for the M&C Saatchi Group and the Financial Times. Ben has some huge and really exciting projects he is working on at the moment, including the launch of his book in April 2022, ‘This Book Could Save Your Life: Breaking the silence around the mental health emergency’.