At St Aidan’s we aim to promote positive mental health and wellbeing of every member of our school community and recognise how important mental health and wellbeing is to our lives. We recognise that children’s mental health and overall wellbeing can impact their learning and achievement and therefore we aim to create an environment which supports their mental health and wellbeing. We also deliver a comprehensive RSHE curriculum where we cover a variety of topics relevant to children’s lives today. This can be found at the front of the school in our Reception area and on our website by looking at our curriculum pages.
We also know there are times you might need additional support and knowing where to find this support is vitally important. As Mental Health and Wellbeing lead I want to be able to give you the tools you need to feel confident in knowing where to and how to access further support should you need it.
Miss Quinn Wellbeing and Mental Health Lead
Who can I contact and who can help outside of school?
CAHMS (Children and Adolescents mental health services) are a NHS service who can help support the emotional wellbeing of children aged 4- 18 who live in Gateshead. They can support and offer advice for children experiencing mild to moderate emotional difficulties.
Website https://www.gatesheadtalkingtherapies.nhs.uk/gateshead-emotional-wellbeing-team/
Telephone: 0191 283 4560
Mind are a charity who support and offer advice to anyone experiencing Mental health problems. They can offer advice and support for helping others too.
Website https://www.mind.org.uk
Telephone: 0300 123 3393
Young Minds are a charity who offer support and advice for young people experiencing Mental Health difficulties. It offers support and guidance for parents through its comprehensive website as well as offering webchat service and free telephone advice and sign posting.
Website https://www.youngminds.org.uk/
Telephone: 0808 802 5544
Place2Be have created a wealth of resources and activities to support wellbeing and mental health of the whole family.
Website https://www.place2be.org.uk/our-services/parents-and-carers/wellbeing-resources-for-families
Working with the whole family
The following are links to useful websites to support the whole family;
Website: https://campaignresources.phe.gov.uk/schools/resources/2022-sharing-with-families-toolkit
Mindstars support children and family welll being and mental health through a full family approach to understanding and supporting Mental Health.
Website: https://www.mindstars.co.uk/
The following is a booklet created with Anna Freud and the Princess of Wales to support talking about mental health with young children
Parent Info
What is Parent Info?
Parent Info is a collaboration between CEOP and Parent Zone.
Parent Zone was founded in 2005 and has a track record of providing information, support and advice to parents. In recent years, Parent Zone’s work has focused on the impact of digital technologies on families. We provide information, resources and training for parents and those who work with them.
CEOP is the child protection command of the National Crime Agency. CEOP reaches over three million children and young people a year through its Thinkuknow education programme and regularly conveys its vital online safety messages to over 100,000 practitioners (such as social workers, teachers and police officers) registered to their network, who cascade these messages directly to children and young people.
Parent Info provides high quality information to parents and carers about their children’s wellbeing and resilience. The information ranges across a wide range of subject matter, from difficult topics about sex, relationships and the internet or body image and peer pressure to broader parenting topics like ‘how much sleep do teenagers need?’
In line with CEOP’s Thinkuknow programme, some of the content covers internet safety, but it all starts from the assumption that young people make little distinction between their online and offline lives and the issues for parents are often the same. The aim is to help parents help their children be discriminating, web-literate and resilient.
We would also like to bring your attention to two documents from the Marie Collins Foundation: