Emily Verardi, Founder and CEO of The Teen Project
I grew up on the Isle of Man, a small island in the Irish Sea with a very close-knit community and striking natural beauty. It was a wonderful place to spend my childhood, but my school years had their challenges, and I was bullied, which made day-to-day life feel particularly difficult. Even something as simple as walking through the school gates could bring up a wave of anxiety. The small moments that should have felt routine – finding a seat in class, navigating the corridors, or trying to join conversations – often felt overwhelming, and over time it took a toll on how confident I felt in myself. Through this, I found myself wanting more space to grow and figure out who I was, and those early experiences played a big part in shaping that.
By the time I was 16, I felt ready for a fresh start, so I made the decision to move to Surrey for sixth-form college. It was a big step at a young age, but it gave me the opportunity to build my independence and explore new possibilities. My parents still live on the island, and I visit regularly, but that move taught me a great deal about resilience and trusting myself during periods of change.
Finding Movement, Finding Me
Moving away from everything I’d ever known was a huge step, and looking back, I don’t think I fully realised just how significant it was at the time. The new environment I entered was completely different – a place where individuality was encouraged rather than questioned. We had movement breaks between lessons, wide open spaces with trees and fields, and a real culture of getting outside, moving, and taking a breath. Being in a setting that valued that freedom and expression gave me the space I needed to slowly rebuild my confidence and understand more about who I wanted to become.
Health and fitness naturally became a focus for me during that time. I started exercising – nothing extreme, just simple things like fitness classes in the gym, long walks, and getting out in the fresh air. It sounds small, but it was genuinely transformative. Movement became my therapy long before I understood what therapy really was. After every workout, I felt lighter, calmer, and more like myself.
In many ways, it saved my life. Movement gave me a sense of control when everything else felt chaotic. It became both medicine and a doorway into something deeper – an early understanding that the mind and body are always in conversation with one another.
That fascination between mind and body, then became an obsession. I wanted to understand why exercise could change how I felt, so I began studying more around women’s health, mindset and psychology. Eventually I qualified as a personal trainer, specialising in women’s health, including pre and post-natal fitness alongside mental health qualifications.
Building a Business With Purpose
When I first started training people, I quickly realised something important: most women weren’t struggling because they lacked discipline or motivation. Their real challenges came from their mindset. I saw women punish themselves for missing workouts, speak negatively about their bodies, or compare themselves endlessly to others. It became clear that it was never just about the gym; it was about how they saw themselves.
That understanding became the foundation of Team Project You – a fusion of psychology and fitness designed to treat mental and physical health as one. Over the past nearly nine years, it has grown into a truly holistic system that supports sustainable change. We work on mindset as much as movement, helping women reshape their relationship with food, exercise, stress, sleep and recovery. We know motivation comes and goes, so we focus on building discipline and long-term habits that feel achievable and life-changing.
There are no fad diets, quick fixes or one-size-fits-all approaches. Everything we do is personalised, supportive and designed around the individual. Women who join us start to feel mentally and physically stronger, more confident and more energised – and that shift continues to ripple through every area of their lives. At the core of it all is a simple belief: that with the right support, you can transform your health in a way that lasts.
I began to see clear patterns. Time and time again, clients would say the same thing: “I started hating my body when I was a teenager.” For so many women, the root of their struggles could be traced back to age 12 or 13 – the very stage when my own confidence had taken a knock. It resonated deeply, aligning with my own struggles through school and the impact those years had on how I saw myself. I couldn’t shake the thought that if these beliefs took hold so young, the real solution wasn’t just in helping women heal, but in reaching girls before those thoughts became deeply ingrained. And then, almost as if by timing or fate, a local school reached out to me.
A Call to Action
A local school had come across my work and reached out, asking whether I could adapt my message for teenage girls. They suggested I deliver an assembly on confidence, movement and self-belief. I still remember that first talk vividly. I stood in front of hundreds of girls, sharing my story – how I’d struggled through school, how movement became a lifeline, and how confidence isn’t about perfection but about showing up for yourself, even on the hard days.
When the assembly ended, the response was overwhelming. Students came up to me and shared their fears around anxiety and body image, others quietly disclosing other mental health struggles. What struck me most wasn’t a need for sympathy, but a hunger for practical tools – something real they could use to feel stronger and more in control.
I realised there was a significant gap between existing mental-health provision and what these girls actually needed. Many were placed on long waitlists or told they didn’t meet the threshold for formal support, yet they were clearly struggling. They were desperate to feel differently, to have something they could use right now rather than months down the line.
At the same time, no one was really talking about movement as a mental-health tool. You were either a clinical mental-health service or a sports provider — there was nothing in between. Yet movement was exactly what could help these girls regulate their emotions, cope more effectively and slowly rebuild their confidence. There was simply no service bridging that space between physical and mental health – so I decided to create one.
The Birth of The Teen Project
The charity started quietly. There was no funding and no grand launch — just me, a notebook full of ideas, and a determination to create what I wish I’d had as a teenager. For the first six to eight months, I volunteered my time. I listened to the girls, to teachers, to parents. I paid attention to what was missing, what genuinely helped, and what didn’t land. Gradually, a clear model began to take shape.
We developed a 6-week confidence and movement programme designed specifically for girls who were struggling with confidence. The aim was to equip them with a practical mental-health toolkit they could carry into adulthood: how to manage their emotions, reframe negative thoughts, move their bodies with kindness rather than punishment, and build healthy, sustainable habits. Team Project You still remains the long-term support for women; but the charity became the early intervention for girls.
In the beginning, it was just me, travelling from school to school with yoga mats and resistance bands in the back of my car. Then Active Surrey heard about the work, and we piloted our first official programme at Broadwater School. The results were remarkable. Teachers reported noticeable improvements in attendance, engagement and overall attitude across the school. Girls who had previously avoided PE not only began showing up, but started to enjoy it. Others told us they were able to manage their panic attacks for the first time, navigate friendship challenges more confidently and feel more in control of their emotions.
Word spread quickly, and soon other schools were asking to be involved.
Growing a Movement
The Teen Project is now officially a registered charity and it’s growing faster than I could have imagined. We’re a small team of 10, who are passionate and slightly exhausted, serving schools across Surrey and beyond. Our work focuses on 3 strands:
1. School-based programmes: small-group courses for girls referred by teachers or pastoral leads, focusing on confidence, movement and mental-health education.
2. Community sessions: held in leisure centres for girls who struggle to get active. These are voluntary and open, helping them see local gyms and community spaces as safe, welcoming spaces.
3. Teacher-training days (CPD-accredited):
where we train PE teachers, coaches and youth workers to understand teenage girls’ barriers to participation, from body image to menstrual health.
Our team includes BPS-accredited professionals who bring both clinical understanding and real lived experience. They’re knowledgeable, supportive and, importantly, relatable – able to meet the girls on their level. They act almost like “big sisters,” combining evidence-based guidance with genuine empathy and an understanding of what it feels like to navigate those challenging teenage years.
Running a charity is very different from running a business. You can’t rely on predictable income streams or scale your team simply because demand increases. Everything depends on funding, timing and the resources you’re able to secure, which makes growth far more complex and uncertain. Funding is always uncertain and right now, our waiting list of schools is longer than my arms and legs combined! We’ve had incredible support from councils like Elmbridge and Waverley, but we need sustainable funding to meet demand.
What the Girls Are Facing
People often ask, “What kind of challenges are these girls dealing with?” The reality is that it’s rarely just one issue. Many are navigating a mix of low self-esteem, anxiety, body-image concerns and social withdrawal. Some have experienced unkindness or exclusion from peers, while others are on long waiting lists for CAMHS support that can take months or even years. A significant number avoid PE altogether because they feel too embarrassed to change in front of others. Some are self-harming, and many simply believe they’re not good enough to even try. It’s a particularly hard time to be a teenager, and the pressures they’re facing today are heavier and more complex than ever.
We’re not a crisis service, and we don’t replace therapy. Instead, we sit in that vital middle ground — teaching practical coping strategies, building resilience and helping girls reconnect with their bodies. If a girl learns at 14 that she can calm a racing heart with a breathing exercise, ease stress through movement, and see her body as an ally rather than an enemy, that understanding can spare her years of struggle. We show them that confidence isn’t a personality trait; it’s a skill. It can be learned, practised and strengthened over time.
Building Confidence, One Girl at a Time
I’ll never forget one girl, aged 15, who barely spoke throughout the programme. She would sit quietly with her jumper pulled over her hands, avoiding eye contact. On the final day, she came up to me and said, “When I came here, I didn’t think I was good at anything. Now I think maybe I’d like to become a psychologist and help others like you do.” Moments like that stay with you, and they remind me exactly why this work matters.
Some of the girls we support have faced unimaginable trauma – abuse, neglect, loss – experiences far beyond what a six-week course could ever fully resolve. But what we can offer is autonomy: practical tools that help them navigate whatever life throws their way. Some of the most resilient people I’ve ever met have come from hardship, and the difference wasn’t the absence of struggle, but the skills they learned to manage it. That’s what The Teen Project is about — not pretending life is easy, but showing girls that it’s survivable, and that they’re far stronger than they’ve been led to believe. In many ways, it mirrors my own journey. I’ve taken the pain I carried through my teenage years and turned it into a passion for creating the support I once needed.
The Bigger Picture
My ultimate dream is for The Teen Project to be embedded in every secondary school. It might sound like blue-sky thinking, but with the right people behind the mission, I genuinely believe it’s achievable. Confidence, resilience and mental-health literacy deserve a place in the national curriculum. We teach algebra and Shakespeare, yet we don’t teach young people how to manage their emotions — and that gap has real, long-term consequences.
To make this vision a reality, we’re building strong partnerships with local councils, schools and corporate sponsors who want to invest in meaningful change. I would love to see companies sponsor individual schools, particularly in deprived areas, so that every girl can access this support completely free of charge. Finances should never be the barrier between a young person and the help they need.
We’re exploring every possible avenue to bring this vision to life and to ensure finances are never the reason a girl misses out on support — from corporate sponsorships and philanthropic donors to community backing and social-impact collaborations. And even something as simple as a referral, a warm introduction or someone passing our mission on to a person who might be able to help, genuinely makes a difference. Every conversation, every new partnership, and every email from a parent saying, “You’ve changed my daughter’s life,” fuels the determination to keep pushing this movement forward.
A Message to the Girls
If I could speak directly to any girl reading this — the one scrolling through social media comparing herself to everyone else, the one avoiding mirrors or dreading PE — I’d say this:
You’re not the problem, and you’re not alone. You simply haven’t had access to the tools that truly help.
And to parents, my message is this: there is hope. The system may be slow, but there are people – myself included – working to build the services that should have existed long ago. You’re not alone in wanting your child to thrive, and support is growing every single day.
Turning Pain Into Passion
When I was 16 and leaving the Isle of Man for a new start, I couldn’t have predicted where life would lead. I simply knew I needed a change and some space to grow. Everything that’s followed – from founding Team Project You to developing The Teen Project – has come from wanting to use my experiences in a positive, practical way. You don’t have to start a charity to change your life; you just need to recognise when something isn’t serving you anymore and be willing to take that first small step forward.
Today, that step has grown into a clear mission: empowering girls to become confident, resilient young women who feel ready to thrive. We focus on equipping them with lifelong skills – evidence-based tools that strengthen their confidence, reshape their relationship with body image and self-worth, and help them navigate their emotions with more ease.
Seeing those skills take root in the girls we work with — steady, genuine, hard-earned growth — is what motivates me every day.
Find out more: https://theteenproject.co.uk/
