Think Ahead

At Think Ahead, we want to see a society where everyone with mental health problems can flourish. That won’t happen unless people can improve their social circumstances. To drive positive change, we created the Think Ahead programme: a new route into mental health social work for talented graduates and career-changers. It has become one of the country’s most competitive graduate schemes, with high-profile support across the political spectrum, extensive media coverage, and over 20 applications for each place on the programme.

As a charity we aim to:

• Attract outstanding individuals into mental health social work, by recruiting exceptional people to our programme and raising the status of social work as a career choice
• Promote excellence in training for mental health social work, by pioneering a new curriculum and with a focus on on-the-job training
• Create a community of advocates in mental health services and across society, through our participants, alumni, Consultant Social Workers, and partner organisations

We expect all our staff to role-model these attributes:

• Leadership: the ability to act as a professional role model, demonstrate initiative, and engage others and enable them to achieve their goals
• Motivation: personal commitment to transforming the lives of people with mental illness, with an understanding of the positive impact of social work and the Think Ahead mission
• Adaptability: resilience and flexibility in changing circumstances, with the ability to work under pressure and deal with uncertain or unexpected outcomes
• Relationship-building: empathy and respect for all individuals, with the ability to build relationships and understand people’s motives and perspectives
• Communication: the ability to collaborate with and influence a wide range of people, in person and through written communication
• Problem-solving: the ability to objectively analyse situations, using evidence and clear judgement to generate effective solutions
• Self-awareness: the ability to understand, and reflect critically on, both your own personal development and how your actions affect others