Mental Health

Leaders: Mrs. S. Wilson & Mrs. L. Patterson

At Hazlewood Community Primary School, we understand the importance of children’s mental health. We aim to care for the children’s mental health through our approachable, nurturing approach and environment.

Children from EYFS to Year 6 are taught about emotions and how to verbalise these feelings in an age appropriate way through the PSHE curriculum. During each academic year your child will focus on relationships and how these may affect mental health. We hope by giving the children in our care the ability to discuss their mental health we will prepare them for high school and the rest of their lives. Miss Hodgeon works closely with outside agencies such as the Anna Freud Centre to ensure that Mental Health is discussed in an accessible way at school.

If a child is struggling with Social, Emotional and Mental Health issues then we have a range of interventions we can offer them at school. Miss Hodgeon leads a Nurture group at break and lunch times where children can go to talk if they are feeling upset. This will then be shared with the appropriate staff and actions will be put into place. Our school have bought into interventions that are specific to raising the mental health of those who need it such as Talkabout for Children. This intervention helps children who have low self-esteem to talk about themselves in a positive way.

Within school we can refer to an outside agency such as the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) if we think this is appropriate and will support you and your family through this.

If you are concerned about your child’s mental health then please make an appointment to speak to Miss Hodgeon.

Our school is an official Research Partner in the Education for Wellbeing programme

We are working in partnership with the Evidence Based Practice Unit (Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families and UCL), which has been commissioned by the Department for Education. Together we are investigating the impact of five innovative approaches that aim to promote pupil wellbeing.

This cutting-edge research trial is the largest of its kind in the UK. Our contribution will improve understanding of how best to support children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing.

Resources for Staff Members

Education Staff Wellbeing Charter

Our school signed up to the Education Staff Wellbeing Charter at the beginning of this academic year. The Education Staff Wellbeing Charter is a declaration of support for, and set of commitments to, the wellbeing and mental health of everyone working in education.

This year we have chosen to focus on driving down unnecessary workload and giving staff a voice in decision-making by asking staff to take part in a workload survey and analysing the results from that to form our next steps. We have also held a staff meeting to gather the views of all staff members about the charter and what they would like the next steps to be.

We are committed to continuing to work towards this charter.

Qwell

Qwell provides a safe, anonymous and confidential way for teachers to access emotional wellbeing and early intervention support that looks to cover a range of mental health issues. Qwell is accredited by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, and the online counselling team are available from 12 noon to 10pm Monday-Friday and 6pm-10pm at weekends, 365 days a year, providing a much needed out-of-hours service for emotional support in an accessible and convenient way. The service is free to users and requires no referral, instead only requiring the user to set up an account on the website. Other support includes self help resources, peer to peer support, access to a daily journal and measured goals.

How to sign up to Qwell

Resources for families and carers

1) Paula Nagel, Place2Be’s Principal Educational Psychologist, suggests some ways that you can look after your children’s, and your own, mental health and wellbeing at this unsettling time.

https://www.place2be.org.uk/about-us/news-and-blogs/2020/march/coronavirus-advice-for-families-staying-at-home/

2) This link provides resources which children, young people and their families may find useful in the context of COVID-19

https://emergingminds.org.uk/resources-for-families-supporters/

3) This link provides a variety of links to resources to support wellbeing of children and young people, parents and carers and staff during Covid 19.

https://www.centreformentalhealth.org.uk/coronavirus-resources-and-information

4) A three-step pyramid to help parents respond to the different stages of their child’s behaviour during this time.

https://youngminds.org.uk/media/4291/when-emotions-explode-poster.pdf

5) The COVID-19 health and wellbeing webpages on the Council website contain guidance that would be useful for parents about how to support children. The Wellbeing pages can be found here:

https://my.northtyneside.gov.uk/category/1430/health-and-wellbeing-during-covid-19

6) Childline Calm Zone – Provides lots of ways for children to stay calm including breathing exercises, activities, games and videos to help let go of stress.

https://www.childline.org.uk/toolbox/calm-zone/

7) Self-care top tips for young parents and carers – booklet which offers some simple self-care advice for young parents and carers about the importance of self-care and looking after their own mental health and wellbeing whilst raising children.

https://www.annafreud.org/media/12208/selfcarepc-final.pdf

8) This link provides expert advice and practical tips to help you look after your mental health and wellbeing.

https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/

9) Free online course provided by Creative Education including ‘Supporting your worried child’, ‘Simple self sooth techniques’ and ‘Staying mentally well during Covid 19’. Found here:

https://www.creativeeducation.co.uk/available-courses/?_price=free

10) Wellbeing Bingo:

https://youngminds.org.uk/media/2913/wellbeing-bingo.pdf

11) The Purple Book – Use this book when you’re feeling nervous

https://hazlewoodprimary.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/CM_ThePurpleBook_BLP_ebook.pdf

12) Workshops videos can be found through the link below and cover topics such as:

• Attachment and adverse childhood experiences
• Autism and anxiety
• Tics
• Low mood and depression
• Anxiety
• Managing difficult behaviour
• ADHD Brain
• Understanding Autism

Child and Adolescent Mental Health service (CAMHS) – Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Mental Health Champions

As part of our school wellbeing initiative, Year 5 and Year 6 took part in important workshops in school to become ‘Mental Health Champions’! The workshop was carried out by OneGoal with the aim to:

• Begin to develop a school ethos where positive mental health is promoted.
• Discuss what positive mental health looks like and the effect on us if it is negative.
• Give children the tools to be able to develop a positive mindset for positive mental health in themselves.
• Give children the tools to support each other and promote positive mental health.
• Recognise when friends need support and how to help.

Now that we have an amazing group of Mental Health Champions, we aim to utilise their new skills to benefit the whole school. Our Mental Health Champions will fulfil a number of roles throughout the school such as; playtime duty to interact with younger peers, support anyone who is upset and identify anyone who is alone or needs support in initiating play with others.  Champions will work with teachers to feedback any support they have given throughout playtime.

Champions will also be a voice for their peers in deciding what yearly initiatives we will be focusing on and will work closely with Mrs Underwood. They will deliver an assembly to the rest of the school to share what they have learned. Champions will be a driving force for positivity in our school.

We will keep you informed with what we achieve via our website and Twitter.

Dept. for Education Commitments Ofsted Commitments What we have signed up to...