Mental Health

Empowering 5,000 teenagers to take control of their emotional health and wellbeing

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mindful-meOver 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 »

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There’s more than one way to build resilience

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By Gary Lovatt

Working intensively with partners from Health, Crime and Education it’s hard to get through a meeting these days without the mention of needing to build ‘better resilience’ in young people.

Indeed it’s refreshing that after years of apparent compartmentalisation of behaviours into different areas (alcohol, smoking, sexual activity, anti-social behaviour, self-harming etc) we’re learning that attitudes and behaviours generally start with addressing the protective factors that allow young people to make better, informed choices.

So how do you achieve and measure resilience? The answer is that you need to adopt a multi-targeted strategy, starting with examining the determinants of those behaviours in more detail. Read the rest of this entry »

This entry was posted in Alcohol Reduction, emotional health, Mental Health, Public Health, Research, Sex and Relationship Education, Social Marketing, Social Norms, Youth Work and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Seek Prevention not Treatment

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By Grace Kelly

It has been unavoidable in the news recently; from exam stress causing teen suicides to a report finding that more than 25% of young people referred to mental health services such as CAMHs are receiving no specialist help at all because cases are not deemed ‘serious’ enough.

The simple fact is that the numbers of young people suffering from crippling conditions like anxiety and depression is growing, with teen self-harm and suicide also on the increase; and mental health services simply cannot cope. Read the rest of this entry »

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Changing Young Lives Using Mindfulness and Therapeutic Life Coaching

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mindful-me

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 »

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Mindfulness – the next part of our journey

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mindfulness-title (2)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 »

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