Children’s Mental Health Week is about to enter its tenth year of awareness and aims to see hundreds of schools, children, parents and families get involved. Partnered with Place2Be, this year’s focus is ‘My Voice Matters’, supporting children to find their voice and understand that their opinion does matter. When children feel empowered and are listened too, this can improve their confidence and wellbeing, as well as what they want to achieve.
Expression and empowerment can also be achieved through physical activity, which is why it’s so important to children moving. Not only is it important to get active daily, but it’s also beneficial if children find an activity that they love which they can focus on and use as a way to express themselves.
Whether this may be running, football, gymnastics, or a walk in the park with family, it doesn’t matter what the activity or movement is, but it’s vital that children have an outlet to feel happy and safe, which can be encouraged through clubs, classes and groups. If you want to find a local group or class to help encourage a student or child to get active, the Find Your Active activity finder is a great place to start, as you can filter by activity type, price and location.
As part of Children’s Mental Health Week, Active Essex are encouraging schools to get outside and complete a walk whilst talking to fellow students through our conversation topic cards. This day is a great way to make students feel calmer, reenergised and increase their concentration levels by getting fresh air, taking part in physical activity and talking. All schools who participate will be sent an Active Essex Toolkit including a Step by Step Guide to host their walk.
Essex ActivAte are also endorsing the campaign this year by working with locally trusted organisations to offer mental wellbeing support, resources and engaging activities to eligible young people at free activity clubs, across February half term in Essex.
Alongside the core Holiday Activity and Food programme offer, Essex Activate pride themselves in offering smaller, dedicated mental wellbeing clubs in quitter settings for eligible children. This helps to support any mental wellbeing challenges that young people may face, also providing a calm space for them to enjoy different activities and meet new people, all at their own pace.
From the winter holiday parent survey, 82% of parents said that attending a holiday club positively impacted their child’s mental wellbeing, as well as their own.
One parent from Chelmsford told us:
“We would not survive without this club! We are a low-income family and are so grateful that the club accepts our child, without this we would struggle. It really helps our mental wellbeing and receiving food helps so much.”
Children shouldn’t face any barriers when getting active and this means that young people of any age and background can find their active. At Active Essex, we like to offer support to SEND projects and groups so that getting active is inclusive as possible and young people with additional needs can also benefit from the happy hormones associated with movement and experience a safe space to explore activity.
Find further support and resources around getting children and families active here.
