SameYou is a brain injury recovery charity that works to develop better mental health recovery treatment for survivors, raises awareness and advocates for improvement in rehabilitation provision.

Actor Emilia Clarke MBE survived two life-threatening brain haemorrhages while working on the Game of Thrones television series.

Emilia told her story in 2019 to launch the charity, alongside her mother Jenny Clarke MBE, and together they have highlighted the lack of rehabilitation preventing people to live productive and fulfilling lives after brain trauma.

Read Emilia's story

1 in 3 people will experience a brain injury at some point in their lives, whether a stroke, a bleed on the brain or a traumatic accident. Despite the scale of the problem, health and social care services are inadequate to meet the demand, resulting in personal distress and causing a preventable increase to the burden of GPs and A&E services.

Current figures reveal that only 14-30% of stroke survivors receive the recommended amount of therapy, which includes physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy.

There is no recommended amount of therapy for patients with neurological conditions, and fewer resources allocated, so survivors are likely to receive even less rehabilitation than stroke survivors. (Source: SSNAP - strokeaudit.org).

Supporting survivors and their loved ones

SameYou’s mission is to pilot recovery innovations that bring immediate benefits to brain injury survivors and their families.

It is a digital charity that operates with a small team and works with powerful partners globally to launch ground-breaking therapies, return to work solutions and lead vital research into brain injury that wouldn’t be funded otherwise.

It also partners with leading academics and rehabilitation services to find new ways of augmenting the workforce and provide education and training for clinicians and the public.

We strongly believe that by combining voices, we all have the power to advocate for change, to highlight the gaping chasm in care and demand better.

Brain injury doesn't just happen to the brain but to the whole person. SameYou’s purpose is for brain injury survivors to know they haven’t lost the person they were before.

Creating real change

In the first 5 years we have delivered practical help and improvements in recovery by working with teams around the world. 

Timeline of impact

• We are a proud member of the World Health Organisation’s World Rehabilitation Alliance, which commits to boosting worldwide access to rehabilitation.
• SameYou has partnered with the Big Issue to launch a recruitment service to help survivors and their carers to return to the workplace after trauma.
• We are working alongside Mount Sinai Health System, New York, to develop a new, innovative mental health-centred recovery pathway and information and training programme.
• We launched a groundbreaking 3-year study with Spaulding Rehabilitation to investigate resilience in young adults after brain injury. It is a world leader in advanced rehabilitation treatment and research and the official teaching hospital for Harvard Medical School's Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.
• The University of Central Lancashire and East Lancashire Hospitals Trust are running a pilot project of Neurorehabilitation Online alongside SameYou, which has been commissioned by the NHS. It delivers pioneering group rehab in real time online, which is a cost-effective way to reach more people.
• SameYou is also working with University College London to develop a first-of-its-kind mental health pathway and protocol for survivors of brain injury.
• Partnering with Royal College of Nursing Foundation (RCN) to create a post graduate module for advanced level practitioner nurses, and the London School of Economics and Political Science to explore the economic case for investing in the training.
• And we also partner with The University of Edinburgh for its ongoing investigation into the diverse experiences and unmet needs of young adults recovering from brain injury to enable new approaches to care.
• Thousands of survivors have written to us about their experience of brain injury and said how they identify with Emilia's story, leading to a support resource called Portraits to tell the untold story of brain injury.
• For support after leaving hospital, SameYou has also created Recovery @ Home, a digital resource library featuring clinicians and therapists, a signposting service called The Neuro Recovery Directory to access support and a buddy system to connect survivors.

Please donate to help us continue our work to improve recovery for young adults after brain injury.

What are SameYou's goals?