Whole School Approaches to Mental Health and Wellbeing event puts Schools in Mind
On Tuesday afternoon, Camden Town Hall played host to a Schools in Mind event focusing on Whole School Approaches to Mental Health and Wellbeing.
The event brought together 100 Schools in Mind members including teachers, education professionals and other colleagues interested in promoting mental health and emotional wellbeing in school communities. It was introduced by the Mayor of Camden, Councillor Nadia Shah who has chosen the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families as her charity during her mayoral year.
This was the fifth free event held by the network, which has been set up by Anna Freud National Centre to help professionals in finding, evaluating and implementing solutions that promote the mental health and wellbeing of entire school communities. It aims to provide a trusted source of up-to-date and accessible information and resources that teachers and school leaders can utilise to support the mental health and wellbeing of their whole school community.
Attendees heard from sector experts, with presentations from education professionals, councillors and researchers. Lucy Frame and Karen Bruce, Principal and Assistant Principal at Ark All Saints Academy spoke on their institution’s mental health and wellbeing, followed by Helen Cameron who spoke about the Islington Mental Health and Resilience in Schools Framework in her capacity as the Council School Improvement Service’s Health and Wellbeing Manager.
Attendees had the opportunity to ask questions and to network as well as find out about the current research from Kate Dalzell (Improvement Support Officer at CORC) and Tanya Lereya (Quantitative Research Fellow at Anna Freud National Centre) who talked about measuring and monitoring children and young people’s mental health through the example of a new toolkit which will support schools and colleges in assessing the wellbeing of their pupils. The toolkit has been launched by Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families in partnership with Public Health England (PHE) based on the knowledge that information will help schools promote wellbeing and assess the impact of school based mental health interventions.
Jaime Smith, Head of Schools Engagement at the Centre commented on the event: “The council chamber was packed. It was wonderful to see so many people that stayed and networked after the event which helped to create a real buzz!”
For more information about the Schools in Mind network and upcoming events, please visit: http://www.annafreud.org/services-schools/schools-in-mind/
Photo Credit: Katrina Lucero