Mental and emotional wellbeing

Appointing a governor to the wellbeing role is a way of ensuring health and wellbeing is a priority through your whole school approach. They can make a big difference by championing wellbeing and linking with teaching staff, support staff, pupils and parents.

Wellbeing Governors can ensure that schools are looking after the health and wellbeing of teachers, school support staff, children and parents, addressing mental and emotional wellbeing, physical activity, food and nutrition and developing programmes.

To start a Wellbeing Governor role in your school you could advertise the role as a new governor or add this to an existing governor's responsibilities who has a passion for health and wellbeing.

Visit the Wellbeing Governor website for advice and guidance and some free training to get your governor confident in their role for wellbeing.

And if you would like to see how a Wellbeing Governor is working in schools locally, take a look at this post about Millbrook Primary School on the Healthy Telford blog.

The Mental Health Foundation website has a wealth of online resources for you to access free as a school. There are resources for you to use with your pupils to highlight the importance of mental and emotional wellbeing and also support your RSE curriculum. 

There are also lots of resources targeted towards staff wellbeing, helping staff to understand and improve their mental and emotional wellbeing. Topics include rethinking rest and loneliness. There is also access to online learning and development courses if you want to learn more about your own wellbeing as well as how to support others.

Finally, there are resources that you can signpost parents and carers to that will give them tips to help them support their children's mental and emotional wellbeing on a range of topics, including healthy relationships, body image and sleep.

In Scotland a free training package promoted by the Mental Health Foundation has been developed that is supporting school teachers working with children to help them tackle mental health in schools. The programme is broken down into three section, and by creating an account you can dip in and out of the training at a time to suit you.

As this is a Scottish programme some signposting and references are not local for us, but the learning is something that everyone can benefit from.

Whether you are a teacher, parent, carer, professional or community worker Young Minds has information and resources designed to support you to help young people with their mental health and emotional wellbeing. This includes topics such as:

• exams
• anxiety
• ADAH
• eating problems
• coping with life.

Young Minds also have a section for young people themselves, where they can gain information and support for topics that interest them or would like help with. This includes live case studies where other young people have shared their experiences.

Mee2 is a free app recognised by the NHS for teenagers to anonymously get advice from experts or other teenagers going through similar experiences, in areas such as mental health, self-harming, relationships and friendships.

Every post and reply is moderated to make sure only positive feedback is published.

The app contains advice and information on a variety of subjects, as well as a directory of specialist support groups that can offer further help.

One in five children and young people suffer from mental health illness in any given year. Kooth believe every young person has the right to thrive and to access high quality mental health care.

Kooth is where children and young people can access free, safe and anonymous online counselling and support. You can promote Kooth around your school, to make it easy for children and young people to access support quickly.

Beam are an emotional health and well-being drop-in service for young people under 25 years old who are registered with a GP in Shropshire, Telford or Wrekin.

Beam support children and young people to understand and manage their emotional health and wellbeing through practical strategies and techniques. They provide a safe place for children and young people to talk through problems and difficulties they may be facing, as well as providing targeted sessions on topics like anxiety, anger and many more.

You can promote Beam around your school, to make it easy for children and young people to access support quickly.

As children from all ages are showing difficulties and behaviours relating to a variety of mental health issues, it is important that schools have a designated person or team who can support individuals, deliver interventions and signpost families to support.

Future In Mind provide schools in Telford with the relevant training to be able to better support children and their families to manage and overcome these issues. The programme works via a yearly subscription entitling designated leads to attend 4 training days per year, receiving specialised training and take away materials to use back in school.

Better Health’s every mind matters resources helps teach PSHE, RHE and RSHE to Upper KS2, KS3 and KS4 students, with flexible, ready-to-use content co-created with teachers, and young people.

While you support students, Every Mind Matters is here to support you by providing simple, practical advice for a healthier mind.

Topic includes Self-care, worry, sleep, exam stress and much more.

Health for Kids is a fantastic resource when teaching children about their own health and understanding their bodies. Topics that are covered include:

• health
• feelings
• illness
• getting help
• body image
• brushing teeth
• and lots more.

The site is designed for children to use themselves or as part of lessons, and it would support in the RHSE curriculum.

There is also a 'Grown-ups' section of the website where there are resources to support parents with their growing children and topics for parents with children with additional needs.

Health for Teens is a website designed to support young people with all areas of their health and wellbeing.

On the website young people can find articles, resources and signposting to national and local services on a range of subjects, such as:

• sexual health
• relationships
• health
• drugs and alcohol
• feelings
• growing up.

Please promote these resources to children and young people via displays, newsletters, or in one-to-one conversations.