Mental Health Charity Safe In Our World Turns Six & Press Pause 2025 Begins

Can you believe Safe In Our World just turned 6 years old? Our mental health charity has grown so much, and we’re on a trajectory of positive change.

We’ll spare you the comprehensive recap of the last year (saving that for our next Impact Report) and jump straight into the celebrations. 🥳 What a wonderful year we’ve had at Safe In Our World! We’ve seen growth within our team, our Board of Trustees, our Clinical Advisory Board, and we’ve welcomed new Level Up partners.

But most importantly, for us at least, we’ve been able to directly engage with so many of you in our community. Our team has been able to meet and talk with hundreds of games industry professionals, consultants, and graduates – at events across the globe.

We’ve brought you talks, roundtables, and resources. We’ve been able to listen to your stories, your lived experiences, and your hopes for the future. The opportunity to connect with you has fuelled our motivation and filled us with inspiration. We’re rocketing into another year of Safe In Our World with fresh ideas and boundless enthusiasm.

🚀 Our Continued Mission

Can you imagine a games industry free from crunch? Where burnout isn’t a constant companion, and imposter thinking is met with compassion? Picture it, just for a moment, a future where every workplace has the tools, resources, and training to deliver psychological safety. A future where everyone feels empowered to seek support should they need it. A future without mental health stigma.

It’s what we picture every day. It’s what we work towards, and it’s what we’ll continue to work towards, for as long as it takes to make that picture come to life. We’ve already taken steps towards that future, and we thank all of you who’ve joined us on this journey.

FOR six whole years, we’ve been delivering mental health support to the games industry and global gaming communities. This mission means everything to us, and I’m so proud of our team for what we’ve achieved so far. We’re also so thankful to our Level Up partners, our workshop leaders and speakers, our fundraisers, and our charity friends. Our future is bright, bold, and brimming with creativity. – Sarah

We’re still a small crew. We’re often met with surprise when people learn we’re only a team of six. But what we lack in size, we make up for in tenacity. Our small team can create big change, thanks to the support of our Ambassadors, Patrons, Trustees, Advisors, and many charity friends. Together we’re unstoppable.

📢 (Re)introducing Our Team

Around this time last year, we welcomed Em (Communications & Events Manager) and Jess (BizDev & Marketing Manager) to the team. Jess has been working behind the scenes, connecting us with new opportunities and developing our strategy. They’ve been focused on how we communicate value and reach further in the industry.

Em has been cooking over the last month to deliver our fresh Press Pause 2025 campaign (more on that later) and branding up our resources. They’ve also been focused on making fundraising fun and accessible, bringing their passion for storytelling to our charity initiatives.

Then, in June this year, we were joined by Izzie (Operations Coordinator), who has been working hard to improve our Level Up programme, helping companies across the games industry access game-changing training, resources, and mental health support. Catch her in your inbox!

The Safe In Our World team absolutely ATE this year! Obviously, that was partly down to the excellent decision in hiring me. What a slay! – Izzie

You might have bumped into Sarah (Charity Director) at a few roundtables this year. She’s been out in the wild, waving the Safe In Our World flag, raising awareness, and securing opportunities for us to reach more devs.

Let’s not forget our part-time finance whizz, Tash (Finance Administrator). who’s given us even more of her time this year as our operation grows.

And then there’s Sky, our fantastic Partnerships & Training Manager, who has pioneered our new Mental Health Star Accreditation over the last year. They are the powerhouse behind so much of what we do as a charity. Be it toolkits, training, or new initiatives to make our industry a safer place; they’re spearheading the positive change our industry needs.

🌠 Our Mental Health Star Accreditation

Undoubtedly, the shining star of this last year at Safe In Our World has been our new Mental Health Star Accreditation – unveiled in August 2025 – bringing the first-ever evidence-based mental health accreditation to the games industry. This initiative propels us forward in our mission to introduce best practices and celebrate companies already leading the way in workplace wellbeing! 👏

💡 We’d like to thank Doug Cockle, the voice of Geralt in The Witcher video games franchise, for lending his voice to our Accreditation launch video – as a patron and friend to Safe In Our World, his support and enthusiasm means a lot to our team.

We’ve had NAUGHT but appreciation for our community. Under the pressure of all the uncertainty and change happening in the games industry, you’ve still shown up for us and supported us. We’ve been shown so much love this year, especially around the launch of our new Mental Health Star Accreditation – we’re so grateful. – Sky

If you’re thinking ahead to what you want to achieve in 2026, consider becoming a Mental Health Star. Our accreditation is designed to be accessible, flexible, and scalable – so whether you’re a two-person team or a AAA studio, an accreditation with Safe In Our World will help you take your workplace wellbeing to the next level.

🎮 Press Pause 2025

Are you ready to unravel a mystery? 👀 To celebrate our charity’s 6th anniversary, we’ve launched our annual Press Pause fundraiser – with a puzzling twist!

Inspired by the success of Blue Prince, which launched in April this year, we put our thinking hats on and came up with a fundraising challenge for those who love a good puzzle (or six)!

Dive into Press Pause: Mysteries Of The Mind, our latest campaign to get your brain whirring. Help Safe In Our World seek out a mysterious hidden truth, which has fractured into pieces and hidden itself within six puzzles. Unravel the riddles, uncover the clues, and investigate the Safe House. Who knows, you might learn something about yourself along the way.

Visit our Press Pause 2025 campaign page on Tiltify to download the Investigation Kit for free, and consider setting up a fundraiser or donating. The kit has been designed so you can play solo or with friends or colleagues. We’ve pulled together a Press Pause Creator Guide to help streamers get started with Mysteries Of The Mind, including insights to share about our charity and recommendations for playing the campaign live on stream.

🎓 Ambassador Applications

For those who missed it, this is a gentle reminder that the application process for becoming a Safe In Our World Ambassador (Class of 2026) is currently open. If you have a passion for mental health in games and feel you can volunteer your time to our mission, apply through our form.

Becoming an Ambassador:

• You sign our code of conduct and uphold our values
• You take part in at least one key activity each year (e.g. streaming, fundraising, public speaking, writing for us)
• You champion our mission in mental health in everything you do

Anyone with a passion for reducing mental health stigma and increasing awareness is welcome to apply, regardless of where you work – or whether you’ve applied before. We highly encourage people of marginalised backgrounds to apply.

New ambassadors receive a Class of 2026 merch gift, priority access to internal news and initiatives, opportunities to contribute to content, access to resources and training, a bespoke monthly newsletter, and a place among our many amazing Ambassadors on the Safe In Our World website.

Apply today – deadline for submissions is 24th October, 11:59 UK time.

Thank you for celebrating six years with us. Play safe! ✌️