Schools - Mental Health

Adolescence is a vulnerable time for the onset of mental illness: 75% of mental disorders begin before the age of 24, and half by age 15 (Kessler et al., 2005). “By promoting good mental health and intervening early, particularly in the crucial childhood and teenage years, we can help to prevent mental illness from developing and mitigate its effects when it does” (Department of Health, 2011).

How can we help you?

We can run a Taster Sessions, from sessions on Managing Anxiety, Mental Fitness, Overcoming Stress, Social confidence, through to a Mindfulness course for any year group between 11-18 and courses for Teachers.

1:1 CBT Psychotherapy is available. Level 3 Child Safeguarding Trained.

Workshops and courses are available for your School or Home School Group or even your Scouts or Guides club.

We can support you to develop a School that takes care of the Mental Health, and mental fitness of your students and staff.

PSHE lessons can be tailored and delivered to your requirements, we can support your staff by delivering sessions at inset days.

The Benefits for Students include:

• Wellbeing and Mental Health
  As well as helping them to recognise worry, manage difficulties and cope with exams, cultivating the mental health and ability to maintain their mental fitness helps children and young people to live the lives that they would like and to flourish.

• Concentration and Cognition
  Taking care of our mental health, leads us to improvements in the capacity of children to concentrate and be less distracted, as well as their working memory and ability to plan. Mindfulness trains us to understand and direct our attention with greater awareness and skill.

• Social and Emotional Learning
  Equipping our children with the insights and tools that they need to live mentally healthy lives is as important as learning how to take care of our physical health. CBT as a way of life, children feeling resourced with tools and strategies to keep themselves mentally fit and resilient. CBT and Mindfulness help to develop a greater awareness of relationships and how to manage them (including difficult ones at home), as well as offering a richer understanding of things like self-esteem and optimism.

• Behaviour
  CBT and Mindfulness may help the young to self-regulate more effectively, manage impulsivity and reduce conflict and oppositional behaviour. Teaching staff and adults can lead this, modelling how they manage their own mental health and mindful awareness.

For Teachers

Keeping our minds healthy in schools is not just about children and young people; it is also very much about those who care for them. The benefits of CBT and Mindfulness in the adult world are well-researched and the positive impact it can have on teachers, counsellors and carers. These benefits include: stress regulation and reduction, increased self compassion and increased teaching efficacy.

Just as physical training is associated with physical health, psychological resilience training is associated with mental health. We are using the .b mindfulness in schools programme developed by the Mindfulness in Schools Project as a Mindfulness Training (MT) intervention. The .b programme is based on the 8-week MBCT course which is known to be effective in preventing depression and promoting mental health in adults, adapted to appeal to teenagers and work in a mainstream classroom setting. The Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy for Life (MBCT-L) Programme is available for teachers. Studies show impacts on mental health, stress and wellbeing.

Please contact me to chat through any of your ideas, we can tailor to your requirements.