Place2Be Supporter Magazine Autumn 2023

An honest view of parenthood

Helpful tips for meltdown moments

Read Della’s powerful story

When children need support, you’re there...

Make an investment in their future

Leaving a gift in your will is a powerful way to continue your support for children and young people, long into the future. Any gift you feel able to leave – large or small – would make a huge difference to making sure these vital services can go on.

Get in touch at legacies@place2be.org.uk or by calling 020 7923 5593 to get a free legacy brochure and find out more about what your support could achieve.

Year 6 pupil

Welcome…

… to the latest edition of your supporter magazine

As you turn the pages, I hope you’ll see just how vital your kindness is to children all over the UK.

Thanks to the generosity of people like you, more children than ever before are able to benefit from expert advice and support at school, helping them to build confidence and resilience in all areas of their lives.

To give you an example, to date, our online course for teachers and school staff, Mental Health Champions Foundation programme, has reached nearly half of schools in the UK, across every county in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

We are so grateful for the energy and commitment of everyone who continues to support our valuable work, which is needed now more than ever.

Thank you so much for the kindness and compassion you show children every day.

A celebration for Children’s Mental Health Week

Next year will see the tenth Children’s Mental Health Week, and we hope it will be a celebration of all the wonderful events and progress that have been achieved in that time.

This year, our resources for schools and families were downloaded over 197,000 times, our videos were viewed over 1.4 million times, and #ChildrensMentalHealthWeek was the most used hashtag by MPs and politicians. All the incredible fundraising events and activities

during the week raised over £20,000 for children’s mental health services in the UK.

Our thanks to everybody who gives their time and energy to support Children’s Mental Health Week, and all the young lives that are so positively affected by it.

See you again in 2024!

Ten years of Royal Patronage

Since her patronage began in 2013, Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales has helped us to shine a spotlight on our vital work.

Read on for updates and what’s new!

As part of her commitment to improving the mental health and emotional wellbeing of children and young people, Her Royal Highness has met pupils, families and staff at a number of Place2Be

partner schools, hosted several special events, and helped launch Children’s Mental Health Week.

You help provide

a light in dark times

Della* is a bright girl who had been managing well at school, despite having a diagnosis of a serious mental health condition. Then COVID struck in her final year, and the prospect of important upcoming exams, during a time of such uncertainty, set her back.

Della started attending drop-in counselling sessions run by her school’s Place2Be School Project Manager (SPM). During the sessions, Della disclosed increasingly concerning issues, including having suicidal thoughts and even making a suicide attempt. Our Place2Be SPM immediately completed a risk assessment, which was shared promptly with Della’s school and her parents, in line with our strict safeguarding procedures. This led to Della gaining the support of an NHS Community Mental Health Team.

Della’s mental health journey had its ups and downs. As she said in one drop-in session, “it is so dark inside my head”. Keeping her safe from this darkness was a joint effort between home, school, the Community Mental Health Team and Place2Be.

Della and the SPM continued to talk, and together they completed a safety plan identifying strategies that Della could use to keep herself safe. The safety plan was shared with school staff so they were able to support her. This helped Della, who said she felt more able to regulate her emotions and bring her destructive thoughts back under control. Della also spoke of her hopes for the future and her supportive network of friends and family.

For the SPM, having faith that Della could survive the darkness relied on being able to see the light within her. This involved

her career ambitions and her passionate political beliefs but also her love of Harry Potter. The SPM used these details to gently reflect back to Della that what helped her cope might also be the things which made life worth living.

By the time their sessions ended, the SPM felt that she was saying goodbye to a young woman who was slowly starting to embrace life again – going out with friends and looking forward to a brighter future.

Thank you for helping to provide children and young people like Della with vital support, advice – and hope.

When children are struggling and in crisis, your kindness helps make sure there is expert support at school.

*Names and some identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the children and families we support. The child pictured is a model.

Managing those

meltdown moments

Parenting Smart offers practical advice for parents and carers of children aged 4-11, featuring content created by Place2Be’s parenting experts. It’s based on evidence and their experiences working with children, young people and their families – and is supported by kind people like you. In this edition, we’re looking at the escalation cycle…

Escalation phase

Signs: your child displays signs of agitation such as whining or sulking. What to do: distract and redirect your child’s attention.

De-escalation phase

When your child’s emotions are escalating it will be difficult for them to think clearly or problem-solve effectively. And when our child’s emotions are escalating we often experience strong and confusing emotions as well.

The escalation cycle is made of six phases:

Signs: your child is starting to calm down.

What to do: DO NOT rehash the incident. Show respect and compassion.

Calm phase

Signs: your child seems content, able to engage in activities and enjoy them.

What to do: praise good behaviour and find opportunities to connect.

Trigger phase

Signs: your child may show signs of struggling to do something. They could be hungry, tired or bored.

What to do: help them work out what is bothering them, and solve it with them if you can.

2 1

Overwhelm phase

Signs: your child seems out of control, e.g. they might be kicking or screaming.

What to do: focus on safety, give them space. Control your own response. This is your opportunity to model calm behaviour.

Recover & Repair phase

Signs: your child is completely calm.

What to do: discuss what happened, problem solve together and practise calming techniques.

3 4 5 6

Remember , if your child’s behaviour has already escalated, you won’t be able to reason with them. Avoid asking questions, offering solutions, or corrections until they are calm. Because it’s so hard for anyone to think when we are overwhelmed, it’s also good to think about ways of keeping calm before things escalate.

For more information, including calming activities for parents, go to parentingsmart.org.uk

The insider’s view…

Some reflections on parenthood, from Place2Be Clinician and Trainer, Karen Stocks.

When I became a mother, I hadn’t considered how different a real child would be from Jemima, the doll I had loved and ‘mothered’ as a five-year-old. I was full of maternal dreaming, like in a fairy tale where everyone lives happily ever after. I was still young and I had hardly started to be an adult.

How do we develop into parenthood? We draw upon our own experiences, while learning from other parents, reading parenting books or listening to podcasts. We then bring all that we are at that point in our lives to the role of being a parent.

I became a parent when I was still learning how to care for myself. My relationship with my children’s father was still in the early stages and when our first baby was born we were both dealing with some difficult family issues and loss. Our oldest daughter arrived after a worrying

caesarean section birth and feeding her was challenging. There was so much I wasn’t ready for. I remember feeling proud but also scared and overwhelmed.

them, to help them grow, to listen to them, and to be there for them when they came looking for me.

In the early days, I found it difficult to understand what my baby needed, or how I should respond. Over time, I realised that the most important thing my children needed was me. They needed me to play with

My story of parenthood is one of seeking help and learning, often through my mistakes. I have learned to be kind to myself, especially during moments of struggle. I have never felt like a confident mother, but that hasn’t stopped me seeking growth and wanting to develop my parenting skills. Find more thoughts and tips on parenting at parentingsmart.org.uk

My three daughters are now in their twenties - past the age I was when I first became a mother. Being their mum is amazing, and challenging, and I wouldn’t change a minute of it. My daughters have seen me struggle. They know it’s okay to be real, to feel deeply and to ask for help.

“I became a parent when I was still learning how to care for myself.”

How you can get involved!

Express Yourself for Children’s Mental Health Week 2024!

The tenth Children’s Mental Health Week will run from 5 – 11 February 2024, and the fundraising campaign is called Express Yourself .

Express Yourself allows children and young people to celebrate what makes them unique with an incredibly fun dress-up day – this could be sharing their favourite hobby, such as skateboarding or dancing, or wearing their favourite colour or accessory or just coming in as themselves.

Express Yourself is about letting children’s voices shine through, and empowering them to tell their own stories!

To find out more about how you can get involved please go to: childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk

Thank you, fundraising!

Hayden did a skip-a-thon at his school during Children’s Mental Health Week. He wanted to support children’s mental health to make a difference to himself and other children. Hayden’s goal was to complete 100 skips a day and raise £100 by the end of the week. With a little help from two of his school friends, he managed an incredible 11,000 skips and raised a whopping £240!

During Children’s Mental Health Week 2023, Avalon School raised a fabulous £200 by holding a Dress to Express Day.

“At Avalon, we have a very active school council who get involved in many of our fundraising events. We ensure that our children and parents know exactly where any money raised is going to and how it will be spent. Finally, we like to have fun when we are fundraising which we feel is very important!”

Calming creativity…

This activity can help children distract themselves from worrying thoughts or feelings.

When they become focused on, and absorbed by, a creative task like this one, it can help them to feel calmer and more settled.

To begin, make a picture by tracing around small objects onto paper, so that they overlap. Focus on the shapes and use drawing, colouring and pattern-making to help distract from worrying and unsettling thoughts – and bring about a new feeling of calm.

You will need:

• A piece of paper, card or the inside of a recycled box.

• Something to draw or colour with such as pens, pencils or crayons.

• Small household objects to draw around such as lids, coins, boxes, or jigsaw pieces. Have fun finding unusual shapes too!

1. Draw around each of your objects. Find interesting ways to make the outlines of your objects overlap and form different shapes.

2. Colour your sections in. You can do this at a pace that helps you feel settled. You don’t need to colour it all in, maybe you’d rather add patterns or leave parts empty.

3. While colouring, you might want to focus on the shapes your pen/pencil makes on the paper – what can you notice about the marks you’re making?

Scan the QR code for more creative activities from Place2Be that support wellbeing