Children’s Mental Health Week
We recognise the impact that the pandemic and the current situation is having on children’s wellbeing and mental health, which is why last week we supported the campaign by Place2be to raise awareness of support services children and young people can use to not face mental health problems alone. The chosen theme for this year was ‘express yourself’. We shared three activities on our social media platforms that children can do to share thoughts, worries, feelings, ideas and creativity; these activities can help children use their own words, thoughts and creativeness to start conversations about mental health. The first activity we shared was how to make your own Worry Eater. The basic of idea of a worry eater is that a child can write down any worries, thoughts or feelings they have on a piece of paper and store them in the Worry Eater’s mouth, to later discuss with a trusted adult. Follow the instructions on the activity and use plenty of imagination and creativity to make your very own worry eater, for more information or for a guided worksheet on Worry Eaters contact us at engagement.hiow@victimsupport.org.uk
The second activity shared was about understanding emotions; allowing young people to express and understand how they feel. By simply using a paper and pen, ask a young person to draw an outline of themselves in the middle of the page. Using conversation you can help them write their own feelings and emotions on the paper version of themselves. They can make this as expressive as they wish; for example actually drawing butterflies in the stomach area for the feeling nervousness.
Finally the third activity we shared was journaling and scrapbooking. Young people can express themselves by creating a scrapbook filled with things they find positive and uplifting – pictures, quotes, drawings or life goals and dreams. Writing things down can help alleviate worries.
There are lots of activities like reading Books, listening to music, relaxing in the bath, exercising, or even having a nap that can all contribute to keeping your mind healthy. The important thing to do is find what works for you and make sure you focus and look after your own mental health not just for #ChildrensMentalHealthWeek but for the whole year through.