Wethnk Services

Matthew's career has spanned secondary education, residential social care, grassroots community sport, the voluntary and community sector, and the criminal justice system. He has worked extensively with young people with social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs, those at risk of exclusion or permanent exclusion, young people in alternative provision, care leavers, and those affected by county lines and exploitation.

Every setting taught him something different about what young people need — and what actually helps versus what just looks good on paper. Most practitioners develop deep expertise in one setting. Matthew has developed deep expertise across all of them — which means Wethnk brings a rare, cross-system intelligence to every school, every commission, and every young person it works with. Not theory borrowed from a textbook. Practice earned in the room.

Behind every number is a young person at a pivotal moment — a student on the edge of exclusion who needed someone to believe in them, a young person in residential care who needed a trusted adult, a teenager on a football pitch who needed a mentor as much as a coach. Many of those young people had SEMH needs, SEND support plans, or had been written off by systems that didn't know how to reach them.

Each of those young people shaped Matthew's understanding of what works — of what reaches young people who have stopped being reached, of what builds trust when trust has been broken, and of what genuine early intervention looks like in practice. That accumulated knowledge is what Wethnk delivers in every programme and every engagement.

From inner-city Birmingham to Shropshire, from mainstream secondary schools to alternative provision, from local authority teams to grassroots community organisations — Matthew has worked within and alongside a wide range of settings and systems.

That breadth matters. It means Wethnk understands how schools work from the inside, what commissioners are under pressure to deliver, and where the gaps between services leave young people unsupported. It also means Matthew walks into every new setting already understanding the pressures the people there are facing — which is why Wethnk partnerships get up to speed quickly and deliver from day one.

Not every young person gets one. That is the uncomfortable truth that sits behind everything Wethnk does. Some young people are lucky — they have a parent, a teacher, a coach, or a mentor who sees them clearly and refuses to give up on them. Others are not so lucky. They fall through the gaps. They disengage. They get labelled and written off.

Wethnk exists for those young people. And for the practitioners, schools, commissioners, and communities who want to do something about it.

If that resonates with you — you are already part of the village.