The 5-11th February is Children’s Mental Health Week.
Children’s Mental Health Week is organised by the leading national children’s health charity Place2Be.
The first ever Children’s Mental Health Week was launched in 2015 to support children and young people’s mental health and emotional wellbeing.
Place2Be provide in-school support to improve the emotional wellbeing of pupils, families and school staff, and expert training for professionals working with children. They have school-based teams across England, Scotland and Wales.
There is a widespread and pressing need for Place2Be’s school-based emotional and therapeutic support. They say,
One in ten children aged between five and 16 years has a mental health problem. If left unaddressed, these problems frequently persist into adulthood.
During the 2015/16 academic year, Place2Be helped
- 4,881 children and young people through over 76,465 one-to-one counselling sessions
- 1,125 children were seen in group counselling sessions
Children’s Mental Health Week this year zooms in on the importance of “Being Ourselves”.
Unfortunately, lots of children don’t see themselves in a positive way and suffer from very low self-esteem which impacts on their ability to cope with life’s challenges. To help, Place2Be is encouraging children and young people to celebrate their uniqueness and feel comfortable with who they are. Place2Be say,
Recognising the different qualities of others can also help us to connect with those around us – which is vital for our own and others’ wellbeing.
Free resources for primary and secondary schools on ‘Being Ourselves’ are now available to download.
You can share how you’re getting involved by adding your event to the interactive Children’s Mental Health Week map.
Tweet the following too:
Join pupils and organisations across the country to celebrate #BeingOurselves this #childrensmhw http://ow.ly/Rvgs30hPTeC
Help your pupils to celebrate #BeingOurselves with these Top Tips from @Place2Be! #childrensmhw http://ow.ly/M2wc30hPTw9
Links and other stories:
Duchess of Cambridge launches NAHT-backed mental health initiative
Joint health and education select committee session on mental health
Need to know: Pupil mental health
Mental health could become a ‘stick to beat teachers with’, and eight other things MPs heard today
Exclusive: Teachers say their poor mental health is harming pupil progress