Next week is Mental Health Awareness Week and the theme this year is ‘anxiety’.

Anxiety is a normal emotion in us all, but sometimes it can get out of control and become a mental health problem.

Lots of things can lead to feelings of anxiety, including exam pressures, relationships, starting a new job (or losing one) or other big life events. We can also get anxious when it comes to things to do with money and not being able to meet our basic needs, like heating our home or buying food.

Anxiety is one of the most common mental health problems we can face. In a recent mental health survey carried out around stress, anxiety and hopelessness over personal finances, a quarter of adults said they felt so anxious that it stopped them from doing the things they want to do some or all of the time. Six in ten adults feel this way, at least some of the time. On a positive note, anxiety can be made easier to manage.

We have shared a number of resources with students this week and the KSL Wellbeing Committee has run some fun activities for students including Just Dance, chalk drawing and painting positive messages in the Base.

Today we invited students and staff to wear something green to raise awareness of mental health and wellbeing. We are not collecting money for this but ask that you please consider donating money to the Mental Health Foundation via this link.

YoungMinds has information for parents and carers on supporting your child with anxiety which you can access here. 

Click here for a collection of Apps, recommended by CAMHS, that are designed to support young people, adults and families with their mental health and well-being. Some of these do need a paid subscription to use them while others have been made freely available during the Covid situation.

We also held the second of our mental health and wellbeing webinars this week. Jenny Langley spoke to parents and staff about how to communicate with your child whatever their mood, and to boost their self-confidence.  This was a really excellent session, with some very helpful tips and advice on communicating with young people. You can access the webinar here (recorded up to the question and answer session): Kenrick CWT parent session on Vimeo. Password: CWTJL180523. The slides for the session can be accessed below.