Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health

We can work with schools and early years settings to enhance their work around emotional wellbeing and mental health (EWMH).

Children and young people’s EWMH influence their cognitive development and learning, as well as their physical and social health. Good EWMH allows children and young people to develop the resilience to cope with whatever life throws at them and grow into well-rounded, healthy adults. Schools have a statutory duty to promote the health and wellbeing of their pupils and there are a variety of creative and inspiring programmes and resources which can enable school staff to help their pupils build emotional resilience and literacy and develop self-esteem.

It is recommended that early year’s settings and schools adopt a comprehensive, ‘whole setting/school’ approach to promoting the emotional and mental wellbeing of children and young people. Such an approach moves beyond teaching and learning to permeate all aspects of life in the setting/ school, and has been found to be effective in bringing about and sustaining health benefits. A whole setting/school approach to promoting EWMHH is seen as a protective factor for child and adolescent mental health.

We can provide individual setting and/or borough wide support as follows:

• Adopting a whole setting/school approach to EWMH
• Support settings and schools as a critical friend in reviewing their practice in this area
• Policy templates and tools including resource and book lists, parent/staff and pupil online surveys and audits
• Teaching and learning related to mental wellbeing (within the new Health Education guidance)
• Review and update the PSHE Curriculum to ensure EWMH is a key strand throughout
• Staff wellbeing including online surveys and CPD

We can provide support and training for:

• A whole school or early years setting approach to emotional wellbeing and mental health
• Staff wellbeing
• Youth Mental Health First Aid Training (2 day or 1 day courses)
• Supporting social and emotional development (including attachment).

Bubbles, Leaves and Worry Trains

Many of the schools we have worked with over the years have expressed an interest in mindfulness, so we decided to produce our own free resource consisting of a handbook for primary school staff providing an introduction to mindfulness, example meditations and listings of further resources available.