Education and PSHE
Empowering 5,000 teenagers to take control of their emotional health and wellbeing
Over a year ago, we created Mindful Me as a response to the growing reports of anxiety and self-harm rates that young people were telling us in surveys1 ran through our R U Different? programme. Read the rest of this entry »
Could your young people benefit from our 2016/17 programme?
It’s that time of year for us when we are busy travelling up and down the country briefing local authorities and schools about our world leading social norms intervention programme, R U Different?
Social norms is still widely accepted as being a successful early intervention tool across many different areas, including of course, health and wellbeing, especially that of teenagers whom we know are very much influenced by their peers.
A recent report by NESTA, cites social norms as “strong influencers of behaviour” and this is exactly why we use this to work with the young people themselves to create exciting campaigns. Read the rest of this entry »
Can we use Social Norms to predict the future?
The eternal challenge when commissioning any mainstream preventative programme in health, crime or education is to measure the ‘what if’ in one, three, five or ten years’ time.
Sometimes the ‘what if’ is about defining how many smokers might have been reduced or the levels of abstention from alcohol resulting from correcting social norms.
Sometimes it is about the impacts that can be generated around protective behaviours, i.e. the improved confidence, resilience or self-esteem young people will benefit from by being involved in a particular programme.
As a socially driven, values based organisation, we are acutely aware of our responsibilities to evidence the impacts we are making with young people through our programmes.
This is primarily the reason we embarked on a 30-month Knowledge Based Partnership (KTP) with the University of Salford. Not only did we want to be independently challenged, we wanted to apply the lessons we have learned to pioneer new territories of research.
Read the rest of this entry »
Changing Young Lives Using Mindfulness and Therapeutic Life Coaching
Changing Young Lives Using Mindfulness and Therapeutic Life Coaching
The Emotional Health and Wellbeing of our young people remains our greatest challenge. Exam targets, conformity pressures and the 24/7 spotlight of social media are just some of the reasons cited for the rises in anxiety, depression and unhappiness we are seeing in our surveys. Read the rest of this entry »
Anti-Bullying Campaign Takes First Prize
Students at Ellesmere Park High School in Salford have won First Prize in our national R U Different? Enterprise Awards and received £500 of high street vouchers between them.
The decision is yours!
The short listed entries for the Enterprise Awards 2015 have been revealed and we now need you to decide on the winner!
We have compiled a short video to remind you of the fantastic campaigns from year 9 students across the UK.
Voting will be open for a fortnight and the winners announced shortly after that.
There is £1000 worth of prizes available to the top three campaigns, so your vote really does count!
Social Norms Specialist Joins the Team
Social Sense is delighted to welcome Kevin Stoodley to it’s ever expanding team, joining as a full time Programme Developer.
A big advocate of Social Norms, Kevin has a wealth of experience in applying Social Norms work in the field and working with a team of academics to develop techniques around focus group research, test and re-test procedures and report writing.
Kevin’s past has seen him develop and project manage both a 3 year pilot Social Norms Intervention Programme ‘Reality Check’ in 2 Gateshead schools and a 2 year Regional Research Programme evaluating ‘Social Norms 4 Schools’ a Social Norms Intervention Programme across 16 secondary schools. Involving pupils aged 13-15 years, both projects sought to investigate sex and alcohol related risk-taking themes. In 2010, Kevin was awarded ‘Overall Winner’ status by NHS North East’s ‘Sexual Health Awards’.
Currently working towards a PhD in Psychology, Kevin has spent a significant amount of time working alongside Northumbria University to develop ethically sound and academically robust research methodologies, statistical testing and published research. Read the rest of this entry »
Mindfulness – the next part of our journey
Over the past 6 years we have been working with young people on programmes designed to challenge perceptions, create informed choices and build resilience.
Identifying and tackling Social Norms can make a measurable difference in terms of reducing risk taking behaviour among teenagers and adolescents. Understanding peer behaviour has enabled us to measurably tackle drinking, smoking and drug rates.
When it comes to emotional health and wellbeing however, a more subtle approach is often needed. Read the rest of this entry »
Roadshow Opens Up New Opportunities
Social Sense attracted over 150 visitors from throughout the UK to their recent national roadshows, where engaging positively and measurably with young people was top of the agenda.
Delegates from local authorities, schools, public health groups and many more joined the team at venues in Manchester, Newcastle, London and Birmingham. Social Sense presented and discussed the work which they have been doing over the last 5 years, and the exciting and engaging future projects which are on the horizon. Read the rest of this entry »
