Supporting Mental Health
Westlands School recognise the ever-increasing demands for support with mental health, especially for young people. As a Headstart ‘Resilience Award’ winning school, we are committed to ensuring pupils who need support with their mental wellbeing should have access to support networks, whether it be by directly asking a member of staff or seeking out appropriate support privately. We have put together a support package containing various links to support services which are trusted, recommended providers.
Resilience Webinar for Parents
A resource created by HeadStart Kent and Draw Your Own Solution, these short videos are a must watch for any parent in Kent to learn about how to support their child to be resilient and how to be a resilient parent themselves. Each video covers a topic on how to build resilience. Click here to visit their website.
Recommended support services
‘Good mental health is all about helping you to make small changes to improve your mental health and give you the tools you need to cope when things get tough.’ - (goodmentalhealthmatters.com)
Kooth offers emotional and mental health support to 11-19 year olds (or 25 with SEND). Young people choose an avatar and can have 'drop in' chats with a counsellor or therapist, book a 1:1 session, or talk to other young people anonymously.
Kooth's Big August Ask
Kooth - Useful Videos
Live Forums on Kooth
Whatever's on your mind - flyer
This is a resource by Kent Resilience Hub that helps young people, parents/carers and professionals to understand emotional growth and resilience.
The Be You Project offers support for LGBTQ+ young people. The service is sponsored by the NHS and Porchlight.
Meditation made easy. ‘Smiling Mind is a unique app-based program developed by psychologists and educators to help bring balance to people’s lives.’
- (smilingmind.com)
Mind provides advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem.
Samaritans is a charity dedicated to reducing feelings of isolation and disconnection that can lead to suicide. You can call Samaritans free on 116 123 from any phone, 24hrs a day, 365 days a year. You can also email jo@samaritans.org. Someone will reply within 24hrs.
Crisis text line: TEXT 85258
Shout is the UK’s first 24/7 text service, free on all major mobile networks, for anyone in crisis anytime, anywhere. It’s a place to go if you’re struggling to cope and you need immediate help.
You can also seek advice from the following organisations:
Apps downloadable through Google Play/Apple store:
This app provides you with an ‘emotionally intelligent’ penguin that learns to react to the emotions you express. Over time it gets to know you better and proactively reaches out to help you. It uses evidence-based CBT techniques to help you feel better. You can chat with WYSA using text and photo responses.
What’s up helps you quickly check-in to find perspective with your thoughts and feelings. When you feel negative thoughts taking over, use the app to help you overcome them. The app also has grounding techniques to help you re-centre.
This is an award-winning app developed for teenage mental health. It uses the basic principles of dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT), which is an evidence-based therapy. The app provides tasks to help you resist or manage the urge to self-harm.
Ellie's Angels
Ellie's Angels are an external registered charity who works with the NHS to introduce mental health awareness and support into day to day student life.
"Better u" is an app we recommend for all our pupils who are struggling with their mental health. This is an app that provides a platform where pupils can support their mental health and well-being through journaling, daily affirmations and mindfulness features. It's also a place where pupils can find links to a diverse range of professional organisations and charities that offer support on a variety of platforms.