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Mental Health and Well Being Resources

Please use the drop-down boxes below to access a range of resources which may be of use to you and your families.

Adverse Childhood Experiences – ACEs

This information has been taken from the NHS.

If you feel you and or your child have experienced ACEs, we are here to help. All families experience stressful times and working together will always help achieve better outcomes.

What are ACEs?

The experiences we have early in our lives and particularly in our early childhoods have a huge impact on how we grow and develop, our physical and mental health, and our thoughts, feelings and behaviour. Two important factors to think about when considering our mental wellbeing, are the quality of our attachment relationships and our experience of ACEs.

What is Attachment?

Attachment refers to the pattern of the relationships we have had with our parents or carers early in our lives. It is the emotional bond that forms between a parent and child from birth and has a huge impact on our development. The way a parent or carer responds to their child will impact on the child’s attachment style. This attachment style becomes a template for how we build future relationships with others in our lives, and also a template of how we feel about ourselves and other people. If we have experienced a relationship with a parent or carer which has been positive, we will develop a positive template for other relationships as well as positive feelings about ourselves and others. But sometimes how children are cared for is not so positive, for various reasons, and this can make it harder for people to make and maintain positive relationships in the future, manage their feelings and behaviour, or feel good about themselves or others. When our early attachments have been negative and these lead us to go on to have difficulties with relationships and our mental wellbeing, this can sometimes be described as attachment difficulties.

What are Adverse Childhood Experiences?

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are “highly stressful, and potentially traumatic, events or situations that occur during childhood and/or adolescence. They can be a single event, or prolonged threats to, and breaches of, the young person’s safety, security, trust or bodily integrity.” (Young Minds, 2018).

Examples of ACEs:

· Physical abuse

· Sexual Abuse

· Emotional Abuse

· Living with someone who abused drugs

· Living with someone who abused alcohol

· Exposure to domestic violence

· Living with someone who has gone to prison

· Living with someone with serious mental illness

· Losing a parent through divorce, death or abandonment

How Common are ACEs?

In a 2014 UK study on ACEs, 47% of people experienced at least one ACE with 9% of the population having 4+ ACES (Bellis et al, 2014).

Impact of ACEs

Just like attachment, experiencing ACEs can have an impact on our future physical and mental health, and often ACEs can be barriers to healthy attachment relationships forming for children. Some of the effects of ACEs on our physical and mental health are:

· An increase in the risk of certain health problems in adulthood, such as cancer and heart disease, as well as increasing the risk of mental health difficulties, violence and becoming a victim of violence.

· An increase in the risk of mental health problems, such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress. 1 in 3 diagnosed mental health conditions in adulthood directly relate to ACEs.

· The longer an individual experiences an ACE and the more ACEs someone experiences, the bigger the impact it will have on their development and their health.

Some of the other things exposure to ACEs can impact, are:

· The ability to recognise and manage different emotions.

· The capacity to make and keep healthy friendships and other relationships.

· The ability to manage behaviour in school settings.

· Difficulties coping with emotions safely without causing harm to self or others

Video link:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XHgLYI9KZ-A

Children's Mental Health Week 6-10th February 2023

We will be taking part in this as part of our PHSE learning.

Below is a link that you might find useful. 

https://www.childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk/

Child and Family Mental Health - podcasts

https://www.annafreud.org/parents-and-carers/child-in-mind/

The Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families

"We've produced a series of expert podcasts to help parents understand and manage child and family mental health problems.

The series, Child in Mind, is presented by BBC Radio 4 presenter Claudia Hammond. In each 20-minute episode, she discusses an important issue in child and family mental health with an expert and a young person or parent."

Looking after yourself - tips for parents

 

https://www.youngminds.org.uk/parent/blog/looking-after-yourself-as-a-parent/

Supporting parents and carers - Young Minds 
"We know the new school term has impacted parents and carers too. Share our ‘Looking after yourself’ blog with tips from other parents. For additional support for families concerned about their child’s mental health, our parent services are always here for them."

Five Ways to Wellbeing

The following resources are for yourselves and your family to access at any time. They follow the 'Five ways to well-being' outlined on the poster below.

This link will take you to a set of wellbeing postcards.

This link will take you to the full self-help booklet and information.

 

Stress Bucket - overwhelming feelings

Buddy Breathing - regain a sense of calm

5 senses grounding and calming

Websites and links

Children's Mental Health advocates 'Place2Be' website :

https://www.childrensmentalhealthweek.org.uk/

'YoungMinds' charity website:

https://youngminds.org.uk/supporting-parents-helpfinder/

Childline has a Toolbox section on its website that has games, advice and videos to help children to manage their emotions. There is also a Calm Zone for when children are feeling anxious and overwhelmed:

https://www.childline.org.uk/toolbox/

The Kent Resilience Hub support 10-16 year olds to cope better with the pressures of everyday life Their website contains a resource that helps young people, parents and carers and practitioners to understand emotional wellbeing and  resilience.

https://kentresiliencehub.org.uk/

Dandelion Training and Development offers a wide range of online webinars, short courses and workbooks to support parents and education and care professionals to support the promotion of positive mental health and well-being of children and young people.

https://dandeliontraininganddevelopment.com/courses/ 

 

Parenting Smart offers practical advice for parents and carers of children aged 5-11. All of our content is created by Place2Be's parenting experts. It's based on evidence and their experiences working with children, young people and their families.

https://parentingsmart.place2be.org.uk/