Looking forward and back

So… it’s been a while since our last blog, mainly due to too much procrastination on my part over the direction of Barefoot Boy!  

Of course there was never any doubt that we wanted to sell awesome, sustainable and ethical clothes for beach kids… and adults!! We absolutely loved our pop ups last year and met some amazing people along the way! We were also lucky enough to get involved with the amazing new Island Street Deli and we are really excited to have our kids range in the Deli this summer… they have some seriously cool plans! Our Barefoot Boy is currently working with them on the renovations (fingers crossed he doesn’t knock any walls down) the plans include an awesome new decked area directly on the water at Island Street… it’s going to make for an amazing place to sit back and enjoy a coffee and grab your Barefoot Boy hoodie!! 

So with the website up and running and our hoodies and tees in Salcombe and also South West 15 in Kingsbridge it left some time to contemplate the brand… we knew that we wanted our brand to have a conscience and that we wanted to highlight and support children’s mental health… but what was the best way to do that? So after much procrastinating and far too many ideas we settled on ‘Barefoot Boy Ocean Therapy’.

Having spent many years in my previous Inclusion and Safeguarding role watching the struggles as children make that hard step from child to teenager, the strains of independence, the struggle to discover who they are, navigating the world of social media, managing social anxiety and the need to fit in, all this so often impacts dramatically on their mental health… it impacts on self-esteem, grades, engagement in school and in the very worst cases but not uncommonly the anxiety is so great that they struggle to be in school, disengage or even for some become at risk of exclusion… behaviour and anxiety is always about need… we want to take the time to understand the need and support teenage mental health. With that in mind, we are currently working on offering local secondary schools the chance to refer a child that they are worried could be at risk of disengaging or who is struggling with the tricky teenage years!

We will offer struggling teenagers days out of school to attend an ‘Ocean Therapy’ day with Barefoot Boy! This could be surfing, paddle-boarding, kayaking, sailing or even coasteering… no phones, no social media, no pressures of school… just the beach, the ocean and a listening ear… maybe even a few hot chocolates and a BBQ thrown in! While we can’t take away all the struggles of growing up we believe that getting back to basics and spending time in the ocean is the very best therapy! If even just one of them discovers a passion for being in the water, finds their happy place at the beach or finds the time out and someone to talk to helps, then we will have achieved great things! Our aim is to offer the same small group of teenagers the chance join us on a variety of days over the spring and summer terms… .to surf, paddle-board, kayak and if their brave enough have a go at coasteering!!

Most importantly we want to share with them that we believe in them, we believe that they can navigate the tricky times and that they can achieve their goals… with someone behind you believing in you it’s so much easier to believe in yourself! 

So keep a lookout on the Barefoot Boy Instagram… we will be launching a new Instagram page dedicated to this project and we can’t wait to share our ocean and beach adventures with you! 

We think you should check out @thehowpeople and @makingwavestogether these guys are doing awesome things and we are totally inspired and really hoping to hook up and work with them as we get started! 

If you still need a Barefoot Boy hoodie or tee our kids range is all stocked up online and we are really excited about our first pop up of the year…we are all booked up for Crabfest, Salcombe on the 4th May…we’d love to see you there!!