Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing

At Richmond Primary School, we respect and value all children and adults. We are committed to providing a caring, friendly and safe environment for everyone to learn and work within. We are committed to promoting positive mental health and emotional wellbeing to all children, their families, members of staff and governors. Our open culture allows pupils’ voices to be heard, and through the use of effective policies and procedures we ensure a safe and supportive environment for all affected - both directly and indirectly - by mental health issues.

We aim to:

• Promote positive mental health and emotional wellbeing in all staff and children.
• Increase understanding and awareness of common mental health issues.
• Enable staff to identify and respond to early warning signs of mental ill health in children.
• Enable staff to understand how and when to access support when working with young people with mental health issues.
• Provide the right support to children with mental health issues, and know where to signpost them and their parents/carers for specific support.
• Develop resilience amongst children and staff, raising awareness of resilience building techniques for all.
• Instil a culture of staff and children’s welfare where everyone is aware of signs and symptoms with effective signposting underpinned by behaviour and welfare around school.

Teaching about Mental Health

The skills, knowledge and understanding our children need to keep themselves - and others - physically and mentally healthy and safe are included as part of our PSHE and PE curriculum. Additionally, we will use such lessons to provide children who do develop difficulties with strategies to keep themselves healthy and safe, as well as supporting children to support any of their friends who are facing challenges. We work closely with our local NHS Mental Health Support team to provide support to our children and their families. We have well trained staff who provide a range of support linked to mental health and emotional wellbeing.

We also follow a whole school approach called ‘Zones of Regulation’ which provides a common language to discuss emotions.

 Children and adults are able to;

• Recognise and name emotions in ourselves and others
• Follow strategies to support self- regulation

Please see below for our most recent parent workshop on 'Understanding Anxiety'.

Here are some useful links:

https://www.youngminds.org.uk/parent/parents-a-z-mental-health-guide/     Mental health guide

https://www.youngminds.org.uk/parent/parents-guide-to-looking-after-yourself/ Guide to looking after yourself

https://www.youngminds.org.uk/parent/how-to-talk-to-your-child-about-mental-health/ How to talk to your child about mental health

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/teach/childrens-mental-health-week-2019/zk37bdm   BBC resources for Children’s mental health

https://www.nelincs.gov.uk/health-wellbeing-and-social-care/health-and-wellbeing/emotional-wellbeing-resources/self-help-menu/     Self help website directing you to useful Mental health websites

https://www.leicestershire.gov.uk/health-and-wellbeing/mental-health-and-wellbeing

https://www.nhs.uk/every-mind-matters/