Words by Smiley Team
With awareness of the support needs of children and teenagers growing, Shaw Mind are calling on the nation to ‘pay it forward’ and donate to ensure the next generation has the best mental health support available.
The WHO reports that half of mental ill health conditions start by the age of 14, though many go undetected and untreated, and 75% develop by the age of 18. Pre-Covid19, British children as young as five years old were being diagnosed with anxiety and depression.
Launching on Wednesday 26th August, the charity’s Give Five, Save Lives campaign aims to raise funds to enable us to train more teachers in mental health and wellbeing as the topics become part of the curriculum in the UK from September.
“We owe it to the next generation to do all we can to help prepare them to live happy, balanced and resilient lives. But we have to equip them with the knowledge and support to be able to do that for themselves.” Peter Wingrove, Operations Director at Shaw Mind, said. “”We do this in three distinct ways: reaching out and training the children themselves, training the parents, and training the teachers who are in effect the ‘front line’ for children’s mental health at school.”
“We’ve been working in schools since our successful Headucation campaign led to a discussion being tabled in parliament in 2017 to get mental health and wellbeing included in the curriculum.”
“Now our interactive online training courses for teachers will prepare them to confidently deliver the new curriculum as well as identify possible signs of distress in the children under their care, while at the same time taking into consideration the limited time that teachers have available to take on additional training.”
Thanks to financial backing from the National Lottery Communities Fund, Alchemy Foundation, Charities Aid Foundation, Souter Charitable Trust and the Mary Robinson Trust, the Trust have been able to start offering this training to schools.
However, to enable the charity to train anywhere near enough teachers to make a significant difference to the next generation, we are asking the nation to dig deep and get involved in our ‘Give Five, Save Lives’ campaign on the Aviva Community Fund site.
Peter added: “It costs £100 to train one teacher in one school, but that teacher will go on to support hundreds of pupils during their career. We want each teacher to be well-equipped and confident in offering that support to pupils, whether it’s now, or in ten years’ time.”
To make a donation to ‘Give Five, Save Lives’, visit our dedicated Aviva Community Fund page www.avivacommunityfund.co.uk/givefivesavelives
Simultaneously, the charity is calling on schools to get in touch to take up the offer of training to equip more teachers and support staff within the education system to feel confident in teaching this vast subject and supporting their pupils.
You can find out more about courses for teachers visit their Get Trained pages or call them on 01636 600830 to discuss your needs.
