{"id":176040,"date":"2025-11-12T03:13:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T03:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/176040\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T03:13:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T03:13:10","slug":"mike-king-steps-down-as-chief-executive-of-mental-health-charity-i-am-hope-foundation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/176040\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike King steps down as chief executive of mental health charity I Am Hope Foundation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"UYVxLGUpqoLIsFLR\" style=\"display:none\">King will continue to play a key role in the organisation in a new capacity, not yet announced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"UYVxLGUpqoLIsFLR\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI\u2019ve loved every second of this journey, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/mike-king-a-timeline-of-mental-health-ups-and-downs\/C5JQTA7YHJBL7JM6UDZX4CDRJQ\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/mike-king-a-timeline-of-mental-health-ups-and-downs\/C5JQTA7YHJBL7JM6UDZX4CDRJQ\/\">the wins, the challenges<\/a>, the people. <\/p>\n<p class=\"UYVxLGUpqoLIsFLR\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI\u2019m incredibly proud of the impact we\u2019ve made through Gumboot Friday, funding thousands of counselling sessions for young Kiwis.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"UYVxLGUpqoLIsFLR\" style=\"display:none\">At times controversial, King\u2019s comments last year about alcohol and mental illness drew criticism.<\/p>\n<p class=\"UYVxLGUpqoLIsFLR\" style=\"display:none\">The Government last year committed $24 million over four years to the Gumboot Friday initiative, which offers free counselling to young people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"UYVxLGUpqoLIsFLR\" style=\"display:none\">That was despite pressure from Labour at the time, who called on the Government to pause its funding of I Am Hope\/Gumboot Friday after King\u2019s controversial comments on alcohol.<\/p>\n<p class=\"UYVxLGUpqoLIsFLR\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cAlcohol is not a problem for people with mental health issues. It\u2019s actually the solution to our problem, until you come up with a better solution,\u201d King said at the time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"UYVxLGUpqoLIsFLR\" style=\"display:none\">The Drug Foundation rejected that, saying alcohol was \u201creally unhelpful during times of mental distress\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"UYVxLGUpqoLIsFLR\" style=\"display:none\">King said the recruitment process for the new chief executive will begin in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"UYVxLGUpqoLIsFLR\" style=\"display:none\">He has been executive director and principal ambassador for I Am Hope, carrying a share of the organisation\u2019s chief executive duties.<\/p>\n<p class=\"UYVxLGUpqoLIsFLR\" style=\"display:none\">Since launching <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/gumboot-friday-unusual-and-inconsistent-process-to-justify-24m-contract-auditor-general-finds\/Z5GSB327IJGCHAYCZNRBVR6N3A\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/gumboot-friday-unusual-and-inconsistent-process-to-justify-24m-contract-auditor-general-finds\/Z5GSB327IJGCHAYCZNRBVR6N3A\/\">Gumboot Friday<\/a> in 2019, the initiative has provided more than 137,000 free counselling sessions to young New Zealanders aged 5 to 25.<\/p>\n<p class=\"UYVxLGUpqoLIsFLR\" style=\"display:none\">King said he would continue to play a key role in the organisation in a new capacity, which will be announced alongside the appointment of the new chief executive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"UYVxLGUpqoLIsFLR\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI\u2019m not going anywhere,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"UYVxLGUpqoLIsFLR\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cMy passion for helping young people hasn\u2019t changed. I\u2019ll be taking on a new role that lets me get back to what I love most, connecting with people, challenging the system, and championing hope.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"UYVxLGUpqoLIsFLR\" style=\"display:none\"><b>-RNZ<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"King will continue to play a key role in the organisation in a new capacity, not yet announced.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":176041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[276],"tags":[99966,17955,3121,73562,17927,18,22406,594,135,20477,19,17,24919,7839,167,502,36126,2034,60302],"class_list":{"0":"post-176040","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-am","9":"tag-as","10":"tag-charity","11":"tag-chief","12":"tag-down","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-executive","15":"tag-foundation","16":"tag-health","17":"tag-hope","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-king","21":"tag-mental","22":"tag-mental-health","23":"tag-mentalhealth","24":"tag-mike","25":"tag-of","26":"tag-steps"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/176041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}