Helping schools ‘Flourish’

In 2022, the diocese, led by the Young Faith Matters team, made a partnership with the Flourish Project to train clergy and lay volunteers to run the mental wellbeing project in schools in their area.

Developed by the Christian charity The Proton Foundation, the project exists to help young people develop healthy self-esteem and improve their mental and emotional wellbeing by equipping them with techniques to encourage positive thoughts and coping with negative.

Rev’d Charlotte Rushton, Ministry Area Lead of Pontypridd, is running the programme with 11–12-year-olds at Hawthorne Comprehensive High School.

Hawthorne is one of the most socially deprived areas in South Wales according to the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation. Because of Flourish, Rev’d Charlotte has seen the effects living in a deprived area has on the hopes and expectations of school age children. Rev’d Charlotte said, of the wonderful things they’ve learned is that the fears they have are the same as everybody else’s fears as well as your hopes and dreams and aspirations. They all want better lives.

“This is a really tough, tough place to grow up. Younger people need hope. So, I want to bring the hope by taking time out of the day to prepare all of this for them. Because if the school has identified your worth something and if they go away knowing that they are worth more than what they thought they were, hopefully, they will have hope to achieve more because they deserve it.”

The group of ten 11–12-year-old girls Rev’d Charlotte is currently working with have all come from difficult backgrounds with unusual family situations and were selected based on the fact that they were finding it difficult to pay attention in school and had high truancy rates. Rev’d Charlotte said she sees the fact that they have turned up every week as a win. The self-esteem work with the girls, which includes identifying negative thoughts (demonstrated with visual cues such as a good apple and a rotten apple), is having a profound effect on the behaviour of the girls in class.

Rev’d Charlotte said, “By session seven, we had quite a profound experience. One girl had been so withdrawn in school, that the teachers have never had a conversation with her long enough to recognise she has a speech impediment. Now the school is going to get her the support that she needs. God has worked in a miracle in that child’s life.”

The Flourish Project uses games and visual storytelling to open up introspective conversations in a fun but safe environment. At the beginning and end of the course, the participants fill in forms which are used to indicate selfesteem, happiness, and mental health at these two different points in time.

“One of my girls said, ‘When I’m feeling sad, I remember Charlotte and all the stuff she said about me and then I’ll feel better.’ So hopefully when they hit these times in their lives where they are challenged and self-confidence can be knocked, they will remember somebody said, ‘You are awesome. You are smart and clever, and you’ve got this.’ I’m hoping these are the tools they will always fall back on.”

There has been a huge transformation in whole cohort which both Charlotte and the teachers at Hawthorne have seen in each of the girls in school.

“The space feels like feels like holy ground. It is the Holy Spirit, just in a form that they don’t recognise and it doesn’t stop in the classroom. For the girls it is going through all aspects of life. And for me, it’s coming back to church and saying to everybody, ‘Thank you for praying this week.’ It is so amazing love to share with the church what their prayers have enabled. So hopefully the whole of the church will be intermingling with the joy of this mission.

“I’ve intentionally not used the faith module with the course. However, I do where my dog collar. There have been conversations which have caught me off guard. As relationships grow stronger and they become more confident, they’ll ask more questions, which I’m always happy to answer.

“It’s going to be a long process. So, I don’t want to say at the end of these eight weeks, ‘Come to church’, because I don’t think that is going to be the link that they need. So, the plan is that I become a safe space for all those children.

“As we form more relationships, as we have more cohorts, I’m hoping that in two years’ time, the school would be open to having a religious message there but at the moment it is based wholly on relationships and giving them a safe space. If they feel like they got a safe space with me then they can start to see any of the churches in the ministry area as a safe space too. Jesus will do his work in his own time.”

Diocesan Head of Education, Beccie Morteo, said, “Wellbeing and mental health is an increasing concern for many of us working with children and young people. The Flourish programme, which is rooted in Christian values and supported by high quality training and resources, offers schools and churches an opportunity to be part of a solution. Working together to support children’s wellbeing will undoubtedly help to develop strong, positive relationships between schools, Churches and the wider community.”

The Young Faith Matters team organise the Flourish Project training for teachers, school staff, lay volunteers and clergy. Six schools (including 1 community) were trained in February 2023. YFM lead Simon Evans said, “As a YFM Team, we have seen that mental health is a significant problem for young people and have seen how the Flourish Project is an amazing resource to serve local schools but also equip churches with the tools to help support young people’s wellbeing. Therefore, the Diocese has committed to training twenty clergy/lay people in the first year of this agreement across two training cohorts, with the hope that this partnership can increase in the years to come.”

Headteacher of Pendoylan Church in Wales Primary School, Emma Harris, said at a Flourish training course:

“The Flourish Project equips young people to flourish into everything they can be. And the training over the last two days has been truly inspirational in equipping me with the skills and confidence to run this amazing project. I am excited to be part of the programme and walk with young children in developing their wellbeing and self-esteem through weekly challenges and creative activities.”

Rev’d Angela Copper, Lead Children’s Officer, is running the programme in Cowbridge in Llansannor & Llanharry CinW Primary School and St David’s CinW Primary School. She said, “What I find going into schools is that lots of children have missed out on social interaction because of COVID.

“Primary school is a foundation of their self-esteem and communication with other children. We are finding that there are groups of children that haven’t got confidence to put hands up in class. With year 6 children, it is good to have some strategies in place that would help them go from one of our small church schools into a bigger comprehensive and grow into the person God wants them to be. It’s a great project for the diocese to be doing and it’s been taken up very well by the schools.”