Mentally Healthy Schools goes live
The Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families has worked alongside Heads Together partner charities for the public launch of the Heads Together Mentally Healthy Schools website today.
The new online hub will provide a ‘first-stop’ for primary school staff seeking resources, guidance and signposting information. It brings together reliable and practical resources to help primary schools support the mental health and wellbeing of children in schools more effectively.
The main aims of the site are to:
Improve school staff’s awareness, knowledge and confidence in promoting and supporting children’s mental health and wellbeing in their local areas
Help school staff more easily find and embed trusted teaching materials, reliable programmes, practical resources and key guidance to promote children’s mental health, develop social and emotional competencies and improve early/effective linkage to help.
Increase school staff’s understanding of local and national resources and where they can source help and strengthen links to appropriate help for pupils and their families.
The development of the site was led by AFNCCF, being responsible for overall project management, as well as digital build and development. It draws on the expertise of other Heads Together partner charities and represents a joint effort from AFNCCF, Place2Be, YoungMinds and The Royal Foundation.
The site has enjoyed great success during its pilot period from January, receiving over 3.8k pageviews, and will now be rolled out nationwide, available for all education workers looking for resources to support the mental health and wellbeing of the children that they work with.
Jaime Smith, Director for the Mental Health and Wellbeing in Schools Programme at AFNCCF said:
"I am extremely proud of the mentally healthy schools website, it provides a trusted source of quality assured, reliable information and teaching resources for busy primary school leaders and teaching staff. The site is accessible and easy to navigate which means that school staff can quickly find the resources they need to support children with their mental health and wellbeing."
Helen Anderson of AFNCCF and Digital Lead of the new site said:
“I am so excited that Mentally Healthy Schools is now available to everyone! The site has already received interest from hundreds of schools, not only across the UK but also as far afield as Japan, Thailand, Australia and Brazil. This highlights the urgent, global need for clear, easily-accessible and trustworthy information, advice and guidance on children’s mental health. Mentally Healthy Schools provides all of this and more, drawing together over 500 quality-assured resources for school staff, governors and parents. With support from our pilot schools, we will continue to develop the site throughout 2018 with the hope that it becomes the number one go-to for mental health and wellbeing resources in primary schools."
Access the site here.