A new chapter for Mulberry Bush

I am delighted to share an important and exciting development for the charity: this month, we are launching our new brand.

For nearly 80 years, Mulberry Bush has been helping children and families affected by emotional pain and trauma to make meaningful, lasting change. We are immensely proud of that history, and of the therapeutic practice, relationships and learning on which it has been built.

But over recent years, our charity has grown and developed considerably. Alongside Mulberry Bush Schools and our therapeutic community in Standlake, our work now reaches much further. Through Training and Professional Development, we support professionals across education, social care and youth justice; through Insight and Influence, we share learning, provide consultancy, influence practice and contribute to wider systems change.

This growth is something to celebrate. Yet our previous identity did not always make the full breadth of our work clear, nor did it show how closely connected each part of the Mulberry Bush is. We needed a clearer way to explain who we are, what we do and what makes our approach distinctive.

That is why now feels like the right time to introduce a new brand.

Over the past 18 months, with the expert support, challenge and patience of Kate Wilson, Claire Walkden and Collaboration Nation, we have listened carefully to staff, patrons, supporters and other stakeholders. Their insights have helped us develop an identity that better represents the Mulberry Bush of today, while remaining firmly rooted in the organisation we have always been.

This is not simply a new logo or a new strapline. It is a clearer expression of our vision, our mission and the principles that connect all our work.

Our vision is: A society where all those whose lives are profoundly impacted by emotional pain can thrive.

Our mission is: To enable everyone we support to make transformative change from within.

For me, our new strapline, Change from within, is particularly meaningful. It reflects something fundamental about the Mulberry Bush approach. We do not believe in doing things to people. We work with people: listening, understanding, reflecting and building the relationships that make genuine change possible.  

It captures our psychodynamic, reflective and collaborative way of working, whether we are supporting a child and their family, working alongside a school, training a team or contributing to wider change across a system.  

The charity’s public materials similarly describe its approach as using psychodynamic theory, reflection and supportive relationships to address underlying causes rather than simply surface behaviours.

The work has principally been funded through our Innovation Fund, established to support ideas and approaches that can grow the charity’s impact. This is an important investment in our future. Innovation is not always about inventing something entirely new. Sometimes, it means finding better ways to share, communicate and build on the knowledge, expertise and practice that already exist.

Our new brand gives us a stronger platform to do exactly that. It will help more people understand the breadth of what Mulberry Bush offers, make it easier for families, professionals, commissioners, supporters and partners to engage with us, and give greater visibility to the learning we have developed over almost eight decades. This matters particularly as the charity continues to extend access to its expertise through training, digital learning and wider professional support.

The visual identity brings our services together while recognising their individual strengths. Relationships and people sit at the heart of the design, while the colours across the different service areas are reflected in the main charity identity. For me, this speaks to the “golden threads” that run through all that we do: shared values, shared learning and a shared commitment to helping people make transformative change.

Many years ago, a former pupil who had attended Mulberry Bush between 1951 and 1953 returned to visit after around 60 years. Her response has stayed with me ever since:

It’s completely different, but exactly the same.

I hope that is how this new chapter feels. The way we present ourselves is changing, but the therapeutic practice, principles and relationships at the heart of Mulberry Bush remain central to who we are.

I am proud of what we have built together, excited by what this clearer identity will make possible, and confident that it will help us reach, support and influence more people in the years ahead.

This is a new chapter for Mulberry Bush — built firmly on everything we have learned over nearly 80 years.

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