Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
1
HeadStart Kent News March 2019
Jess Speaks at Parliament
On Tuesday, February 5, four young people, from
Folkestone, Ashford and Canterbury Academy, attended
a Parliamentary event on the mental health of young
people organised by The National Lottery Community
Fund for HeadStart partnerships.
Jess Griffiths, 19, from Folkestone, who is a Young
Carer and has been involved in the HeadStart Kent
programme since 2016, spoke about her own
experiences, emphasising the importance of co-
production and ensuring young people have a say in
how services are developed locally.
During her speech she said: “If someone had said to me two
years ago that I would be standing up here in front of this many
people – speaking – I would have run a mile! When I got
involved in HeadStart I was struggling at school. I didn’t have
very good attendance, or a great relationship with my teachers,
and was always told I was never going to achieve anything in
my life.
“I have helped massively to develop HeadStart and, in turn,
HeadStart has played a massive role in creating an environment
which has helped me develop and get to where I am today. I
really look forward to what the future holds and how I can
continue to use and build on the skills and confidence I have
developed through my journey with HeadStart Kent.”
Speaking after the event Jess, who won a
British Youth Council award for personal
development in the Youth Voice Star Awards
in January 2019, said: “It was brilliant being
able to share my experiences of HeadStart
Kent with so many people and having MPs
and other decision makers there to hear. I
hope it will have a positive impact and improve
awareness of what HeadStart is doing with
young people.” The event, hosted by the Rt
Hon Norman Lamb MP, aimed to help the
partnerships highlight their current learning,
and support both the sustainability of
HeadStart partnerships and the legacy of the
programme and its evaluation through
engaging a variety of stakeholders.
From Left to Right…Young Person from Blackpool, Mims Davies
MP, Rt Hon Norman Lamb MP, Dawn Austwick National Lottery
Community Fund and Jess Griffiths
Eleanor Burnaby–Rouse and Jess Griffiths
2
Kent Youth Take a Leap of Faith
Speakout @HeadStart Kent and Kent Youth County Council members attended a weekend
residential at the Kingswood Centre, Ashford as part of their training and induction to their new
roles.
Over the weekend the young people took part in a number of outdoor activities including Lazer
quest, problem solving games and a leap of faith! There were also a range of workshops to
develop their understanding of being elected representatives and
decision makers within HeadStart Kent. Learning included
developing skills in chairing meetings, managing exam stress and
10 young people were trained as Democracy Young
Ambassadors.
Young people told us the best bits about the weekend were
‘making new friends’, ‘stepping out of my comfort zone’ and
‘learning how to work with new people’.
Evaluating our Progress
A summary report with findings from the second year of school implementation interviews is now
available via the Research and Evaluation page. The full report is available on request from
Sarah Collins, Monitoring & Evaluation Officer ([email protected]).
The findings show that school staff are embedding learning from training into practice and using
the tools provided by HeadStart Kent. Currently this is more likely to be those in pastoral support
roles than teachers. Schools consider access to grant funding for students a particular
success. Administrative processes and the availability of some commissioned services were
described as challenges by staff.
Your views are needed!
To support the evaluation of HeadStart Kent, we are seeking
views from stakeholders around awareness of the programme
and its intended outcomes.
By participating in this short survey, you will be assisting in the
development of the programme.
3
HeadStart Kent are supporting a new resource for primary
schools
The NHS in Kent believe that it's essential to reach primary school-aged
children with positive and simple ways to look after their own mental
health. The Fantastic Fred Experience is a FREE resource available for all
Kent primary schools for years 1 to 6 (key stage 1 and 2). It has been
developed with teachers, our children’s mental health provider, KCC
educational psychologists, and focus groups.
During the live interactive performances, Fantastic Fred will teach
children how to look after their own mental health in a fun and
memorable way.
Angela Ford the HeadStart Kent Programme Manager is delighted to be
representing Kent County Council at the launch event for this exciting
resource.
Young peoples voices to be loud and clear!
Two new Emotional Wellbeing
Participation Workers have been
appointed thanks to funding from the
NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups.
Their mission is to provide better
opportunities for young people aged 10-
25yrs, (and parents/carers) who have
accessed any form of Emotional
Wellbeing or Mental Health service, to
have their voice and views heard.
This includes young people being
confident and effective in giving
feedback, co-producing resources for
their peers and staff teams and making
recommendations for changes in
services. The Participation Workers,
Sarah Haigh and Emily Upfield, are
creating new youth and parent/carer
voice sessions across the county and
linking in with existing youth services and
parent support groups.
Young People’s participation can range from completing a one time survey, creating social
media pages and resources or attending district and countywide groups and becoming a young
leader. Staff will be happy to support all those who want to be engaged at whichever level is
best for them.
For further information or to be kept informed of future opportunities for CYP and parents/carers
in each district, please contact:
North and West Kent: Emily Upfield, [email protected], 07827278100
East Kent: Sarah Haigh, [email protected], 07970198768
Sarah Haigh and Emily Upfield
4
Making best use of the Wellbeing Measurement Framework (WMF) survey
findings
A member of the Resilience Team from St. Georges Secondary School in Thanet has
demonstrated a fantastic example of best practice, by showing how the data collated through the
annual WMF survey can be interpreted and used to support future planning in schools.
He tells us he attended the training workshop offered by HeadStart and CORC at the end of
2018 after the online reports were issued, which looked at explaining the WMF data in depth and
how to use findings for different audiences. He then took the time to analyse his school’s data
more thoroughly. He states, “It was very useful as it threw up a couple of surprising/intriguing
findings… but gave us meaningful evidence to use.”
The findings were discussed with the school’s Resilience Team and has led to the focus on
some specific actions in relation to areas they felt they needed to improve, but also to ensure
that they look at creating some definite targeted interventions. They are now reviewing the
school’s PSHE mapping and were able to link together what they are doing as part of the
HeadStart Kent programme with some clear, measurable outcomes.
The next steps are to share the findings with the school’s senior leadership team (SLT) and
Governing Board, and also staff in each year group, for them to inform the pupils. The aim is to
run some focus groups with young people to be able to understand their feelings and needs.
This is a really impressive example of what we hope the results of WMF survey can bring to your
schools, and how you can take this knowledge forward to focus on areas of wellbeing and
resilience that you may wish to improve. Well done St. Georges!
Youth Take Over Day
On Tuesday 19th February we took part in the youth take over day challenge with HeadStart Kent. In the morning we looked at the Talents and Interest grant applications and either granted them the money or asked them for more information.
We also worked on developing the community resilience tool kit, which was actually pretty difficult and probably needs more work.
After lunch we had our first Executive group where we got to look at some data and put forward questions regarding Kooth and safe spaces to the people in charge and had them answered to see what work was being done to correct problems we saw.
Written by Megan P - Canterbury and Central SpeakOut
Reading Well
Kent libraries is involved in a national scheme called Reading Well Books on Prescription, which
makes books and a reading list available on different subjects, including mental health for 13 –
18 year olds. For more information visit the Reading Well website.
5
SpeakOut Tackles Exam Stress
With exam season approaching, Homewood students have been
focusing their recent SpeakOut sessions around how to manage
stress. Group members have considered how they can manage their
own stress, how they can support others, and which strategies could
be spread as part of Homewood’s whole school approach to mental
health and emotional wellbeing.
While still in its infancy, the group continues to grow as school staff
help to promote the group through regular HeadStart assemblies,
amounting to 8 Homewood students deciding to participate in
HeadStart’s Big Conversation on 27th March.
Access to our FREE training!
Dates have now been released for our training this year. For more information and to book
please follow the links below:
YMHFA E-Learning – Register free at onlinementalhealthtraining.co.uk/invited/
Half Day YMHFA Lite (For parents & practitioners) & two Day YMHFA www.kscb.org.uk/training
Mindfulness Awareness (Level 1), Intensive Mindfulness (Level 2—Four Full Days), Train the
Trainer (Level 3—Two Full Days) www.mindfulkent.co.uk/awareness
Building Resilience: Knowledge
and Skills, email
Autism? Have your Say
Healthwatch Kent are currently asking
children and young people with, and
parents/carers of those with Autistic
Spectrum Disorder to complete this short 15
minute survey.
They are hoping to understand what
challenges are faced by people on the
spectrum and their carer’s and what is most
helpful or needed when someone is
diagnosed and when they have a crisis. The
link to the survey provides more information
for those interested in taking part.
Please share this with any agencies, young people and parents and carers.
Talents & Interests are Brilliant
HeadStart Kent have paid over £44,000 for
young people to access talents and interests in
their local community. This has included music
lessons, gym membership and horse riding.
One school staff member reported that “The
Talents and Interests grant was a really good
idea too because there are so many kids that, for
whatever reason, come from a home where they
don’t have the finances to support a child with an
interest. For me that was brilliant, and it’s worked
really well.”
Talents & Interest grants can be
accessed for a young person on
the completion of a Resilience
Conversation. More information
can be found on our website.
Resilience Hub: www.HeadStartKent.org.uk
Twitter: @HeadStartKent
Email: [email protected]
