Mental Health and Wellbeing
At Rushmere Hall, we recognise how important mental health and emotional well-being is to our lives in just the same way as physical health. We recognise that mental health – that of our children, and of their parents and teachers – is a crucial factor in children’s well-being and can affect their learning and achievement.
For this reason, a team of staff at Rushmere Hall are working hard to ensure we have a whole-school approach to promoting positive mental health and well-being, through creating a nurturing, inclusive community, teaching specific skills, and providing opportunities which bring joy, build resilience and self-esteem and encourage children to work together. It is also our role to have robust systems in place to recognise and support children who may be experiencing a particularly stressful time and refer on to outside agencies if appropriate. We have some very experienced staff at Rushmere Hall, however we are not trained mental healthcare practitioners, therefore there will be times when we need to refer certain cases on to the appropriate professionals.
We love Rochdale Borough Council’s Five Ways campaign (below) and we have adopted the headings here at Rushmere to focus us on the simple, everyday ways that we can promote mental health and well-being.
If you're concerned that your child's wellbeing or safety is being affected, please see our Early Help Offer and Safeguarding pages.
We also hope you find the links below useful.
Talking Mental Health
This video and linked resources are a great place to get tips and ideas on how to speak to children about mental health and well-being.
Mental Health and Parenting
Here's some helpful leaflets on mental health and parenting:
'You're never too young to talk about mental health'
Parenting with a mental health problem
Tips for talking about mental health with your child
Useful websites
Parents who are looking for support can refer themselves directly to the Suffolk Children and Young People Emotional Well-being Hub.
Further information and resources can be found at:
www.youngminds.org.uk
www.mentalhealth.org.uk
www.mind.org.uk
Thrive
The Thrive Approach is a specific way of working with all children and young people that helps to develop their social and emotional wellbeing, enabling them to engage with life and learning. The Thrive Approach promotes wellbeing for all children, helping them to build their resilience and preventing the likelihood of mental health issues in the longer term. While being sensitive to any previously experienced trauma, Thrive is non-judgemental and will help young people become more self-assured, capable and adaptable. It also provides a firm foundation from which to build their academic attainment.
Thrive-Online® is used to screen whole classes, groups and individuals to identify underlying emotional needs. It then suggests practical activities to help young people and enables you to measure their progress. Linking the outcomes to whole school PHSE requirement and class wellbeing topics.
Our trained Thrive practitioners are Mr Buttons and Mrs Higgins.
If you think your child would benefit from Thrive or would like to find out more, speak to your childs class teacher or the Thrive Practictioner in the playground at the start or end of the school day.
Here's an example of some of the approaches we use with Thrive at Rushmere.
