A circle, a square and a triangle — the same person, seen three ways

Black-and-white portrait of a bearded man wearing a black cap and hoodie with “Different Hats” branding

Our story

Success rarely looks the way we were told it would. The hats we wear — pupil, teammate, friend, sibling, son — each measure it differently, and young people are usually judged on only one.

Different Hats Foundation exists to widen that measure, and to give young people the language and habits to hold more than one definition of doing well.

Back of a black hoodie featuring a white handwritten quote: “What do you think success is?” asked the boy. “To love,” said the mole.

Our mission

To help the world see success differently — starting with the young people being judged by it.

Our story

Different Hats Foundation advances the education and wellbeing of children and young people. We deliver programmes, workshops, talks and community initiatives that build emotional wellbeing, resilience, self-awareness and positive relationships — in schools, sports clubs and the other places young people already are.

Students attend an emotional literacy presentation in a classroom, with a speaker pointing to a projected slide.

Vision

A generation that can name how it feels, ask for help, and measure a good life by more than grades and status.

How we get there

Age-appropriate, experiential sessions built on the Five Pillars, delivered in person and free to the setting.

Work upstream, before silence becomes a habit.

Reach them early

1

Classrooms, changing rooms and community halls — not clinics.

Go where they are

2

Train the adults too, so the language outlives our seven sessions.

Leave something behind

3

Never charge the young

4

Donors and sponsors pay, so need decides where we go.

Our WHY

We started with a question that kept coming back in every conversation on the podcast: who decided what success looks like, and why does living up to it cost people so much?

The answers were consistent. Grades, money, status, silence. People doing everything right by that measure and quietly coming apart behind it — and young people learning the same rules before they're old enough to question them.

Student raising a hand during a classroom lesson with a teacher and classmates in the background

Meet the team

Bearded man in a black cap and Different Hats sweatshirt speaking and gesturing at an indoor event.

Sam Thomas

FOUNDER

Founder of Different Hats and host of the Different Hats podcast, working with organisations and young people on what success costs and what it could mean instead.

Smiling man speaking into a microphone at a business conference 
Life Education Coaching

Max Marshall

Brings the Life Education techniques at the heart of the masterclass — emotional intelligence, resilience and the practical activities students take away.

Governance, safeguarding and money

  • To advance the education and wellbeing of children and young people through programmes, workshops, talks and community initiatives.

  • Everyone delivering a session holds an enhanced DBS check and works to the host setting's safeguarding policy as well as our own.

  • Delivery first: facilitators, travel and materials. We publish our accounts annually and report against every restricted fund.

  • Safeguarding, privacy, complaints and fundraising promise — available on request while registration is completed.