The importance of mental health support in schools…
A new section of the MindMate website has been launched with an A-Z list of secondary schools, so young people and their families can be directly to each schools’ mental health webpage to find out about the support offered –Help from your school – MindMate
Let’s hear from Feli – a MindMate Leeds ambassador – on the importance of mental health support in schools:
Why do schools need an effective mental health support webpage?
Young people spend a lot of their time in school and generally have networks of trusted professionals and peers around them. We know that mental health support works best when we remove barriers by ‘going to’ young people where they are, making schools a fantastic first port-of-call for students to go to for support with their mental health and wellbeing
We also know that young people are using the internet more and more to find information. It is easy to imagine a situation where a young person needs support from their school but doesn’t quite know how to bring it up. They may want to look up information about support in their school to increase their confidence in having that initial conversation. This is one reason it is important that, alongside physical and verbal signposting to support within schools, schools have effective mental health support pages on their websites.
What guidance is there for schools?
A guide created by young people
We know school-life is increasingly busy, so our teams have worked with young people to create a guide to improving your mental health webpage. The guide is provided for free below. If you use it, we would appreciate if you could send us a quick email to childfriendlyleeds@leeds.gov.uk to let us know – feedback is welcomed too! This will help us feedback to the young people involved about the impact their guide is having!
Visits from MindMate ambassadors
A MindMate ambassador – young people employed by MindMate to celebrate and promote MindMate resources – can also visit your school and provide support in improving your mental health and wellbeing support offer. Email childfriendlyleeds@leeds.gov.uk if you’re interested in finding out more.
Introducing, our new and improved logo with increased web-accessibility. Get in touch at childfriendlyleeds@leeds.gov.uk to update your thumb!
