As our younger children’s wellbeing comes under the spotlight during Children’s Mental Health Week, we wanted to share a few tips on how to best support their emotional growth through Action Mental Health’s Healthy Me programme. A specially designed programme geared towards to supporting and promoting better mental health among 8 to 11 year olds, it features fun, played based activities, such as the Emoji Game.
This is a fun and effective programme which employs the principals of a learning system used in autism education – helping those who have difficulties conveying their emotions, through pictures and illustrations.
Outside the field of autism education, it poses a great opportunity for children in mainstream education confront their own emotions that they might not yet be able to fully articulate.
Grounding is a powerful way to interrupt anxious thoughts in the present moment! It is an ideal way to deal with children’s anxieties and worries. As we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, it is understandable that children have absorbed extra worry from the media and the people around them. Perhaps they have experienced loss or illness in their own family, a school friend or a person they consider as a role model.
Although talking, journaling and other activities such as keeping worry dolls are a tried and tested way to overcome negative feelings, there are other practical ways to stay grounded.
5-4-3-2-1 Senses
Exercising the senses helps children to stay grounded. Depending on age this is an effective means to halt thought streams:
5 things you see
4 things you hear
3 things you smell
2 things you can touch
1 thing you taste
Or try an exercise with just ‘sight’.
5 colors I see
4 shapes I see
3 soft things I see
2 people I see
1 book I see
Be a tree
Few things are more grounded or rooted than a tree. “My feet are firmly planted” or “I can feel the ground under my feet.”
Power Hug
Firm pressure is reassuring and great for grounding. “I am safe now.” The child places their left hand on their right shoulder for a tap and then their right hand on their left shoulder for another tap. Then squeeze into a self hug and affirm – tap, tap, squeeze, affirm.
Here & now hand trace
Child traces a hand on paper. They can write down within the outline things they see in their surroundings.
Primary 2 and 3 pupils from Christ the Redeemer and Ligoniel primary schools in Belfast
Action Mental Health this week unveils a new mental health promotion programme for Northern Ireland’s primary school children as young as four.
The new programme, Little Healthy Me, is a vibrant and engaging, trauma-informed, mental health initiative aimed at building resilience in children in Primary One, Two, Three and Four.
Little Healthy Me explores emotional wellbeing issues, healthy lifestyle choices and pathways to effective support through imaginative and interactive play and song and has a strong focus on prevention and self-help.
The ground-breaking programme is unveiled during Children’s Mental Health Week which takes place from February 7-13, the theme of which is Growing Together.
Little Healthy Me was developed by Action Mental Health as part of the Our Generation project and is an extension of its hugely successful Healthy Me Programme for children in P5-P7, which has been running for several years. Our Generation is a cross-community, cross-border initiative whose motto is Growing Up Better Together, tying in with this year’s CMHW focus. Our Generation is a project supported by the European Union’s PEACE IV Programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB). Match-funding has also been provided by the Executive Office in Northern Ireland and Irish Government.
The new programme is unveiled against a backdrop of growing need for better mental health services across Northern Ireland. The first year of the pandemic marked an 11% rise within one local health trust area, in those aged 18 and under, attending emergency departments for serious mental health issues, compared to 2019. Those statistics, gathered within the Western Trust, included a five-year-old child and another, aged nine.
Targeted at 4 to 7-year-olds in P1-P4, Little Healthy Me sessions are delivered to Northern Ireland’s school children through interactive and fun, three-hour workshops, offered over three sessions by Action Mental Health and Our Generation specialist project workers.
The mental health-enhancing Little Healthy Me sessions are delivered by Action Mental Health free of charge to participating schools thanks to the generosity of the local community which supports the charity through donations, fundraising and gifts in Wills. Public funding has also been received through Peace IV programme and match-funding through The Executive Office and Irish Government.
Action Mental Health also provides free Little Healthy Me sessions for school staff, parents and carers, to promote whole school and whole community approaches as the most effective way of improving wellbeing outcomes for children.
Children participating in Little Healthy Me explore the area of mental health through engaging activity workbooks with a focus on the promotion of social and emotional wellbeing through problem-solving; coping and resilience skills and challenging stigma and discrimination. The sessions further teach children how to seek help when needed and where to find support as well as supporting the transition to post primary school.
Middle pic (from left) Lynsey Stewart, principal of Ligoniel Primary School, Nicola McKeown, acting vice principal of Christ the Redeemer Primary School, with Action Mental Health’s Our Generation team member Rebecca Mitchell, AMH chief executive David Babington and AMH Our Generation team member Laura Euler, were joined by the children of Ligoniel Primary School and Christ the Redeemer Primary School for the launch of a brand new mental health and wellbeing programme for children from P1 to P4, Little Healthy Me.
Little Healthy Me uses evidence-based approaches to promote the importance of mental health with physical health, and teaches children how to understand and express feelings appropriately. It also encourages adults to think about their own mental health needs and those of the children they care for.
Northern Ireland’s Mental Health Champion, Professor Siobhan O’Neill praised Little Healthy Me, stating: “Preventative intervention programmes such as ‘Little Healthy Me’ make an important contribution to our efforts to improve mental health here in Northern Ireland. Importantly, Little Healthy Me is designed by experts and is evidence-based, using strategies that we know will create resilience. The theme of Children’s Mental Health Week is ‘Growing Together’, and ‘Little Healthy Me’ uses play to foster connection and build strong social and emotional awareness, which will better equip our children to cope with life’s difficulties and flourish.”
Lynsey Stewart, principal of Ligoniel Primary School in Belfast, applauded Little Healthy Me, stating: “Action Mental Health’s project workers delivered the Little Healthy Me programme to 97 children from P1 to P4, introducing topics on self-care, self-regulation and coping strategies in an engaging and age-appropriate manner.
“The children benefitted greatly from the delivery of the content, brought to life on illustrative paddle boards, and bespoke workbooks which continue to reinforce their learning after the completion of the programme. It’s an added advantage that the project workers were able to adapt their approach from the P1s right through to the older children in P4 in a thoroughly accessible manner.”
Nicola McKeown, acting vice principal of Christ the Redeemer Primary School, Belfast agreed, stating: “The ‘Little Healthy Me’ programme has had a profound impact upon the health and wellbeing of the children in our school. All children from years 1 to 4 participated in this excellent programme centring around the importance of a healthy mind and body. Such was the excellent delivery of the programme that our children are now equipped with a range of coping strategies that they can use when facing adversity.
“This awareness of their own mental health is evident in the language they use in classroom discussions and this can only have positive implications for our children’s future wellbeing. I would highly recommend this programme to all our other schools at a time when it is needed most.”
Action Mental Health’s Amanda Jones, Head of Resilience and Wellbeing Services explained the background to the programme. “Little Healthy Me is based on an existing mental health promotion programme – Healthy Me – which was designed to provide a preventative approach by raising awareness of mental and physical health and wellbeing amongst Key Stage Two children in the school setting.
“This approach is consistent with NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) public health guidance which highlights that ‘children’s social and emotional well-being affects not only their mental health but also their physical health and can determine how well they do at school’ (NICE, 2008).”
Little Healthy Me was developed in Northern Ireland through a collaboration between Action Mental Health (AMH) Our Generation and Donegal Youth Service (DYS) with expert input and direction from the Ulster University, Royal College of Psychiatrists (NI), Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), Stranmillis University College, Andrews Memorial Primary School principal, Ralph Magee, AMH New Life Counselling’s Arts Therapist and PlayBoard NI.
Amanda Jones added: “We wish to extend our thanks to the working group for their valued contribution and ongoing support for our work to improve the wellbeing of children in Northern Ireland.”
To find out more about Little Healthy Me and how to book, please click here.
Findings from a recent Youth Wellbeing NI Survey found that one in six children and young people engaged in a pattern of disordered eating and associated behaviours that indicated the need for further assessment.
AMH everyBODY – which provides support to people living with an eating disorder and their family and carers across the Southern Trust area – found that the pandemic exacerbated the problem among young people.
Deborah McCready, Project Worker with AMH everyBODY said: “Anecdotally, we are hearing from parents, schools and pupils that during the pandemic young people have been more exposed to risk factors that could explain these findings.
“Eating Disorders can thrive in isolation and as a result of the pandemic young people had less access to their normal social support systems, yet more access to social media in isolation. Whilst social media isn’t the root cause of eating disorders, it can be a risk factor in developing low self-esteem, body dissatisfaction, increase in anxiety and negative thinking patterns through comparison.
“Through our AMH everyBODY BodyTalk workshop, we encourage critical thinking with social media usage and teach how to put protective tools in place to ensure it is used from a place of support and encouragement. The pandemic also resulted in a lot of media campaigns that centred around weight and food, from stockpiling during lockdown, to stigmatising language being used with coming out of lockdown and weight loss, that we heard routinely from clients that it was triggering to be exposed to.”
Deborah said the disruption to safety routines like creative outlets, hobbies, and clubs has also been a breeding ground for anxiety. “As a result of all of these risk factors we as a service have noticed that people contacting for support have been displaying more unwell and with more complex needs than previously experienced. This is where our positive working partnership with the Southern Health and Social Care Trust (SHSCT) Adult Eating Disorder team has been essential to ensure timely and appropriate support.”
HOPE
AMH everyBODY works closely with the SHSCTrust Adult Eating Disorder team to ensure comprehensive support programme advances a positive recovery journey.
AMH everyBODY has a key focus on prevention and early intervention regarding eating disorder and also works closely with local communities through schools, colleges, youth and sport organisations to achieve this through our BodyTalk workshop that looks at areas of eating disorders awareness, signposting to appropriate support, self-esteem and resilience building.
Figures from the Department of Health in 2020 show that for review appointments to eating disorder services rose by 40%. AMH everyBODY has also seen an increase in demand for support, not just from individuals presenting with an eating disorder, but also parents of children as young as 8 who are engaging with CAMHs, from teachers expressing concerns for pupils demonstrating disordered eating behaviours, and also pupils who have expressed the need for more eating disorder awareness raising workshops to address issues amongst their peers.
Whilst evidence does indicate that the pandemic has had an impact on young people and the prevalence of eating disorders we have also found that more people are self-referring and reaching out for support. Schools are also taking a more proactive and joint up approach that supports from all levels, from pupil to parents to teachers, and that through effective and early awareness raising we can remind everyBODY that it is never too early, or too late to seek support.
Action Mental Health knows that life today largely revolves around social media, the internet and our smart phones with their seemingly endless digital possibilities. We do our shopping, banking and countless other things online and it is hard to get away from its far-reaching fingers finding their way into our personal pots whether we like it or not.
The same goes for children: they socialise with friends online, follow social media memes and trends and many of them find their daily entertainment on sites like YouTube, leaving the television to their parents’ old skool ways.
Children often depend on the internet for their schooling, with some of the patterns of their education that had to be adapted during the lockdowns, like Google Classroom, still in use today. For many parents, it seems their children’s lives are intrinsically tied to an intangible online world with tethers that can’t be severed.
Just as it is for adults, using the internet can be an enjoyable experience where we connect with loved ones and friends, but likewise, it can become unhealthy when we spend too much time in the digital world, at the expense of the real one.
It can become especially unhealthy for young people when you consider the particular issues they can face as a result of being online, whether through social media or online gaming. Children who spend too much time on either can end up feeling socially withdrawn, face online bullying and negative peer pressure; they can fall prey to sexualised communications (sexting) and be targeted by sites which promote eating disorders, self-harm and suicide and sexual grooming.
In 2018, the World Health Organisation named gaming as a mental health disorder under gaming addiction. Gaming in children and young people has become more of an issue over the past few years with an increase in playing inappropriate games which have violent content, like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto which are both age 18 rated games. Fortnite (rated age 12) is one of the most common games played by children of primary school age and has associated popular dances (The Floss).
Gaming addiction could include a child or young person socially withdrawing from friends and shutting themselves away from family, along with gaming for long periods of time, losing interest in other hobbies and a change in sleep, eating, mood and behaviour.
Some tips for parents on gaming and social media usage
Limit days/duration of screen time on gaming device/phone/tablet/computer
Monitor types of games being used with consideration for content and age appropriateness
Set parental controls on the gaming/phone/computer devices
Monitor any online activity with friends and unknown people on games/phone/computer
Find alternative activities like playing board games and outdoor play/sports
Monitor changes in mood, behaviour and sleep and contact GP if any changes become concerning
Children’s Mental Health Week takes place this week, from February 7 to 13, focusing on the theme of ‘Growing Together’.
The week-long focus on the mental health of our younger generation helps Action Mental Health’s daily mission to support their wellbeing and help build the skills for resilience in later life.
One in six children and young people have a diagnosable mental health condition and over half of all mental health disorders start before the age of 14.
Boys aged 6 to 10 years are more likely to have a probable mental disorder than girls, however, in 17 to 23-year-olds, the pattern reverses, with rates higher in young women than young men.
Emotional disorders, particularly anxiety and depression, are on the rise, with blame being laid at the door of the negative impact of social media, the long term impact of the pandemic, and the isolation and stress that young people have experienced over the past two years.
This year’s theme is a fitting as Action Mental Health prepares to launch a brand new initiative aimed at equipping Northern Ireland’s youngest children with the skills to build resilience in an effort to offset emotional and mental health problems in later life. Make sure you join us Thursday to find out more, and every day this week to find out more about Action Mental Health’s services to support young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
During the week, AMH will offer a comprehensive package of tips, advice and help for children and young people experiencing mental ill-health.
We will also provide vital information to help signpost parents who want to help their child through periods of anxiety, depression and low mood and also those experiencing an eating disorder, among myriad other issues.
We’ll offer advice on helping your child stay safe online and will also add a little fun into the mix with some entertaining games and activities for younger children to try out at home.
Children’s Mental Health Week takes place next week, from February 7 to 13, focusing on the theme of ‘Growing Together’.
It is a fitting theme this year as Action Mental Health prepares to launch a brand new initiative aimed at helping Northern Ireland’s youngest children grow emotionally, and to better understand their mental health.
But we’re keeping that under wraps until Thursday, February 10, when all will be revealed so make sure you visit amh.org.uk every day to find out all about it.
During the week, AMH will offer a comprehensive package of tips, advice and help for children and young people experiencing mental ill-health.
We will also provide vital information to help signpost parents who want to help their childthrough periods of anxiety, depression and low mood and also those experiencing an eating disorder, among other issues.
We’ll offer advice on helping your child stay safe online and will also add a little fun into the mix with some entertaining games and activities for younger children to try out at home.
Bronagh Luke, Henderson Wholesale and Keira Campbell, Henderson Foodservice launch Henderson Group’s recent charity partnership with Action Mental Health with Jonathan Smyth from the charity. The partnership will aim to raise funds for the organisation, while also ensuring staff at Henderson Group have access to even more wellbeing resources, complementing their WellAware Health and Wellbeing Strategy.
This year sees the start of a new charity partnership between one of Northern Ireland’s biggest employers, retailer and wholesaler, Henderson Group and Action Mental Health (AMH) – the organisation that promotes the mental health and wellbeing of people in Northern Ireland.
The partnership will aim to not only raise funds for Action Mental Health to continue their impactful work to equip individuals here with employability training and a myriad of other services, but to work in tandem with Hendersons to ensure their staff have access to even more wellbeing resources.
January will see staff and store team members take on the Miles for Mental Health challenge, by walking, running or cycling each day to improve their own physical and mental wellbeing to kick off the year, and to raise funds.
The coming weeks will also see the launch of a number of initiatives for staff and managers across the Group, which will aim to improve mental wellbeing across the entire workforce which will build upon the Group’s long-term ‘WellAware’ Health and Wellbeing strategy.
Bronagh Luke, Head of Corporate Marketing commented: “Keeping our teams motivated and focused has always been at the backbone of the Group’s success, and by working with Action Mental Health, we will be further prioritising the wellbeing of our staff with even more incentives to enable them to connect and thrive as we continue to navigate the challenges of the past two years.
“It’s hard to believe we’re entering the third year of many of our office-based employees working from home, and we have had many processes in place to keep our teams as engaged as possible. Working with Action Mental Health and kicking off our year with the Miles for Mental Health challenge is giving our staff a great bonding experience with some healthy competition, as well as getting out there in the fresh air for some physical exercise which we all know boosts our mental wellbeing also.”
Also founded in Northern Ireland, Action Mental Health is a multi-faceted organisation which has its AMH New Horizons services at its core, available across Northern Ireland. With AMH New Horizons, clients can benefit from a variety of personal development, vocational skills and employability training options, including accredited qualifications and work placements. The charity also offers a range of services and programmes aimed at improving mental health and developing resilience in children and young people as well as counselling for people of all ages.
Jonathan Smyth, Head of Communications and Fundraising, added; “Even before the pandemic, mental illness was one of the biggest challenges facing society here, with Northern Ireland having the highest prevalence of mental health problems in the UK.
“Action Mental Health provides a range of services to support people in Northern Ireland and we are seeing ever increasing demand. It is with that in mind that we are absolutely delighted to be appointed as Henderson Group’s charity partner. As a local charity we rely on the generosity of the Northern Ireland public and the support of local companies like Henderson Group to help provide many of these services.
“We are also looking forward to working alongside Hendersons to support the mental health and wellbeing of their staff. It is wonderful to see them starting the partnership with their ‘Miles for Mental Health’ challenge. We hope this offers them a fun way to not only fundraise, but also get active and support their own mental health.”
Henderson Group will participate in virtual and active challenges throughout 2022 and beyond, such as the Great Purple Picnic, Belfast City and London Marathons, and will mark World Mental Health Day with the charity in October.
Bronagh finished; “We have great plans that will help fund the vital services Action Mental Health brings to people in Northern Ireland, including those who need support and guidance to navigate employability and workplaces.
“We look forward to getting started and kicking off a successful and thriving partnership.”
