Children's Mental Health Week 3-9 February 2020

The week is run by children's mental health charity Place2Be; for the last two academic years we have commissioned the charity to work in school 2 days per week (each Monday and Friday) whereby they operate a counselling service. If you wish to speak to anyone in school about this please contact Mel Denniss- Project Manager (Monday and Friday only) or Mrs Dhanda- Family Support Practitioner via the School Office or call 0121 556 0854.

Place2Be focus on the importance of children and young people's mental health. This year's theme is 'Find Your Brave'.

Bravery comes in all shapes and sizes and is different for everyone. Bravery can be about sharing worries and asking for help, trying something new or pushing yourself outside your comfort zone. 'Finding Your Brave' can build your confidence, self-esteem and make you feel good about yourself. This is the message that our children were given in assembly to launch Children's Mental Health Week. They were encouraged to reflect on a time recently when they were brave and to think about how this made them feel. We had lots of responses from riding a bike without stabilisers to taking armbands off in the swimming pool; one little boy in Year 2 managed to 'find his brave' later that day when the Animal Man visited and he went from screaming in fear to holding each of the animals presented! Well done Nathan!

We also looked at books and challenged our children to identify brave characters from stories that they had read.

As a school we are really proud to say that, although we have celebrated Children's Mental Health Week this week, for us every week is children's mental health week. We have a variety of strategies and interventions designed to support social and emotional health and wellbeing; we can also signpost and refer to external agencies if required.