Mental Health and Well-being
‘‘For our family, Brackenwood Infants have been a continuous support system. They have gone above and beyond for our children in supporting their individual needs both academically and emotionally. We couldn’t have asked for more.’’ - Parent Survey 2023
ELSA
An ELSA in a school is an Emotional Literacy Support Assistant. Examples of support that our school ELSA can offer our children are social skills, emotions, bereavement, social stories and therapeutic stories, anger management, self-esteem, counselling skills such as solution focus and friendship.
The role of Mrs Lamprou as the school’s ELSA has now been extended to include being the school’s family liaison officer. Families can now also access Mrs Lamprou’s vast array of experience and skills to help with all aspects of parenting and family support.
Curriculum Support
As part of our curriculum at Brackenwood Infant School we ensure that all children are provided with sufficient opportunities to understand emotional literacy, in an age appropriate way. Through our well thought out curriculum, we provide all of our children with the opportunities to develop skills and strategies to improve their own mental health and well-being.
Mental Health Support Team (MHST)
Brackenwood Infant School work in partnership with the Wirral Mental Health Support Team (MHST). This is a service designed to help meet the mental health needs of children and young people in education settings.
They are made up of Children and Young People’s Mental Health Practitioners and Education Mental Health Practitioners (EMHPs).
The service has three core functions:
To deliver brief evidence-based interventions to support children with mild-moderate mental health problems.
To support schools in developing their whole school approach to mental health.
To provide timely advice to school staff and liaison with external services, to help children and young people to get the right help and stay in education.
The team will offer assessments and interventions for a range of mental health needs that may be less complex or may be managed by time-limited interventions. For example, children and young people who demonstrate anxiety, low mood and behavioural difficulties which do not meet the diagnostic threshold for specialist clinical support. Interventions will promote resilience and support children and young people to develop the skills and techniques to manage their emotions. These will be delivered through a range of workshops,individual work and groups for parents/carers as well as through whole class room activities depending on the assessed needs.
To access this service, please discuss your concerns with the school, we will then be able to consult with our team to discuss what level of support would best meet your needs.
Here is our Education Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP) Lesley Forber.
The video below provides more information about the MHST and the services they provide.
Useful Websites
Mindfulness
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom” – Viktor Frankl
Mindfulness is all about being in the moment, calmly acknowledging one's thoughts and feelings. A state of mind where there is an awareness of one's own presence and conscious in the now.
For some people mindfulness was thought of as the new buzz word and that it would be forgotten in a few years time. At Brackenwood Infant School we recognise the importance of the calm state of mind and teaching our children mindfulness, equips them with vital skills that they can take with them throughout their lives.
Our School’s Committee
At Brackenwood Infant School it is our vision that all children are entitled to flourish, academically, socially, emotionally and mentally, enabling them to grow in confidence and be able to participate with confidence in everything that goes on in the wider community. It is widely recognised that a child’s emotional health and well-being influences their cognitive development and learning, as well as their physical and social health and their mental well-being in adulthood. As a result of this, we now have a dedicated Mental Health and Well-being Committee that is made up of Governors and members of staff. This committee meets regularly and if you would like further information about how you could contribute to it, then please contact Mrs Thomas via the ‘Contact Us’ form.
myHappymind
We are proud to announce that we are a myHappymind Silver Accredited school!
This means that as a school we consider the mental health and well-being of our children as one of our top priorities. We have created a whole school culture that helps build our children's resilience, confidence and self esteem as well as teaching them how to self regulate in those stressful times.
This Accreditation badge has been awarded thanks to all the effort our staff, children, governors and parents have put in to bring the lessons of myHappymind to life all around our school!
To Learn more about the myHappymind for Schools programme visit their website here - https://myhappymind.org/
myHappymind Explained
At Brackenwood Infant School, we use myHappymind to help create a positive mental well-being culture in which children build resilience, self-esteem, and character. myHappymind uses the latest research, science, and technology to help children develop lifelong habits and learn to thrive.
myHappymind is taught across the whole school in weekly sessions, and consists of 5 units:
Meet Your Brain – Learning about how our brains work.
Celebrate – Understanding our character strengths and celebrating ourselves.
Appreciate – Developing gratitude as a habit.
Relate – Building positive relationships.
Engage – Engaging with the world.
Resources for parents
To learn more about the myHappymind for Schools programme visit their website here - https://myhappymind.org/
myHappymind has developed an App for parents to download on a device for free. To access these materials go to https://myhappymind.org/parent-resources and enter your name, email, and authentication code. Your authentication code is 105021 or scan this QR code to sign up
myHappymind quotes from staff :
"The children really enjoyed learning about the parts of their brain and how they work together. They made links to our behaviour principles at school. "
"The children have loved discussing their progress towards achieving their goals."
Well-Being for Staff
At Brackenwood Infant School we are dedicated in developing and maintaining a working environment that places Mental Health, Well-being and Emotional Health at the heart of what it does. As a result the governors of the school have taken the following steps:
•The school’s marking policy clearly sets out that teacher feedback to children will ‘mainly be verbal rather than written and that teachers will usually mark work during lessons when pupils are present.’
•Teachers are not expected to reply to emails at home or during the weekends (although they may choose to do this).
•The Headteacher and senior leaders of the school have an ‘open door policy,’ that allows all members of staff to feel confident that their feelings and needs are valued.
•Dedicated time is allocated to discuss the school diary so that all teachers are aware of what is coming up over the next two weeks and further if required.
•Teachers are encouraged to take planning, preparation and assessment (PPA) non-contact time, off site.
•Teachers have been provided with a range of services to support them with their own mental health and well-being.
•Appropriate support and training is provided to all members of staff so that they are able to successfully complete all aspect of their job description.
•During January 2021, all staff were offered the opportunity to take part in a 6 week emotional literacy program. This program included before and after questionnaires, group sessions and a 1:1 drop in service that staff can continue to access if required.