Short description
Drawing on nearly thirty years of therapeutic experience, trainer, coach, and author Guy Jacobs argues that the youth mental health crisis is structural, not individual. Rebuilding the Village traces how modern life dismantled the community that once protected every generation of young people, and sets out ASPIRE, a practical framework through which families, schools, workplaces, and healthcare can rebuild it together. Publishing in 2026.
Synopsis
Evidence from England shows that around one in five children and young people had a probable mental disorder in 2023. Antidepressant prescribing has more than doubled since 2008, and people waiting for NHS mental health support report that their condition worsens during the wait. Rebuilding the Village asks why demand keeps rising, and answers with a structural diagnosis: within a single generation, the web of relationships that quietly protected young people (extended family, neighbours, clubs, familiar adults with time to notice) was dismantled, and nothing replaced it.
Part One traces how the village was lost: the history of how societies have cared for mental health, the three forces that scattered the modern community (geographic mobility, changing family structure, and the demands of modern work), and the digital revolution and pandemic that finished the job. It closes with communities in Ethiopia, India, Mexico, Spain, and rural Britain that kept their collective structures, showing the village is a choice rather than nostalgia.
Part Two presents the ASPIRE framework: six interlocking pillars (Accountability, Support, Purpose, Inspiration, Resilience, and Education) distilled from nearly three decades of therapeutic work and contemporary psychological evidence.
Part Three turns blueprint into building site: coordinated support networks around each young person, schools as natural village centres, employers as village members with an unanswerable economic case for involvement, and a phased plan for national scale. The book ends not in alarm but in agency: the village can be rebuilt, and the work begins with a single connection, repeated and sustained.
About the author
Guy Jacobs is a trainer, coach, and author with nearly thirty years of therapeutic experience spanning NLP, CBT, EMDR, hypnotherapy, and timeline therapy. He left school in 1983 to become a BT engineer; a car accident redirected his life towards psychology, and on his thirtieth birthday he retrained as a therapist. Over nearly three decades of therapeutic work, he watched the proportion of his clients under 25 rise from roughly one in twenty-five to closer to six in ten, a shift that prompted this book. He now trains and coaches individuals and organisations across finance, law, technology, infrastructure, health, and education. His professional website is guyjacobs.com; a fuller book-focused biography is on the author page.
Facts at a glance
- Title
- Rebuilding the Village
- Author
- Guy Jacobs
- Subject
- Youth mental health; community; psychology (non-fiction)
- Publication
- Publishing 2026; format and retail details to be announced
- Language
- English (UK)
- Website
- rebuildingthevillagebook.com
- Sources
- More than 800 references, searchable on the citations page
Suggested interview and discussion topics
- Why the youth mental health crisis is structural, and what three decades in the therapy room reveal about how it built.
- From 4% to 60%: how the age profile of a therapy practice changed within one career.
- The village we lost: mobility, family structure, modern work, screens, and the pandemic.
- What communities in Ethiopia, India, Mexico, Spain, and rural Britain still do differently.
- The ASPIRE framework: six pillars for rebuilding coordinated support around young people.
- Schools as village centres: what teachers see, and what they would need.
- Generation Z at work: why employers are part of the village, and the economic case for acting.
- Resilience without toughness: why managed difficulty inside genuine support is teachable.
- What parents can realistically do while the wider structure is rebuilt.
Brand assets
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