Mental Health

Children need to feel happy, safe and secure in order to be able to learn and flourish. We at St Stephen’s view the mental health of our children, as well as that of our community of parents and staff, as essential to ensuring their well being, progress and future success.

This year we have assigned a Senior Mental Health Lead (Mrs Bouwman) to oversee policy and practice for the wellbeing of children and staff. Watch out for the new Positive Mental Health Policy coming out soon.

We have both a School Counsellor and an Emotional Literacy Support Assistant (ELSA) to help children in school.

We practice mindfulness in school and promote emotional literacy and resilience through our Relationships and Health Education Curriculum.

 

School Counsellor at St Stephen’s – Theresa Kyeyune.

My role is to provide emotional support to children, parents and carers within the school community.

I am a qualified Person Centred Therapist with a Certificate in Play Therapy. It has always been my ambition to help and support children and adults with their feelings and emotions. Various experiences such as trauma, bereavement or loss can have a major affect on how we grow and learn. Therefore early intervention and support can be vital in the healing process.

The effects of COVID-19 and the change in how we live our daily lives, will no doubt have an affect on our mental health and well-being. We at St Stephen’s want to do all we can to support our children and families at this time. It can be a very anxious time for many, and we want you to know that we are available if you need support with any mental health issues.

I very much enjoy working with the families of the St Stephen’s community. Please do contact the school office if you need any further information.

 

Emotional Literacy Support Assistant- ELSA, Miss Tami

The role of the ELSA is to help children recognise, understand, and manage emotions to increase happiness and success in their learning. It isn’t to fix the problem, it is to help the child figure a way to manage their issues so that they can adapt these strategies into a classroom setting and to manage their emotions better and be happier within themselves. The long term effect of being an unhappy child at school cannot be underestimated and it is the role of the ELSA to help facilitate the happiness of these children through the sessions. Children learn more effectively if they are happy and believe in themselves.

Some children just need a bit of focused 1:1 time and attention, someone to listen to them, away from the class. Others need more structure in the sessions with clear targets that we have decided to work on. The class teacher and the ELSA decide together what to focus on and the progress of this is monitored and updated by the ELSA in a pre and post session(s) record.

The role of the ELSA has worked very well alongside and in addition to the role of the School Counsellor. Together, the two roles complement each other nicely! The emotional fall out from the pandemic for some children cannot be underestimated and the role of the ELSA has never been more needed or welcome.