THE EMOTIONAL
HEALTH
HUB
Support For Professionals
At The Emotional Health Hub we use our clinical experience with children alongside the most current research to support a range of professionals working with children. We provide training sessions and also offer guidance with emotional health and wellbeing policies. Click here to get in touch and discuss your particular needs.
Working with Schools
Schools are uniquely placed within our communities to play a supportive role in the emotional health & wellbeing of our children. However, high demands on academic outcomes often leave teachers with minimal time to focus on this.
Research shows the positive impact school relationships and social & emotion interventions can have on future mental health. It is vital that a whole-school approach to emotional health & wellbeing is embedded fully in every school to enable our children to learn and flourish.
Public Health England: Promoting Children's Emotional Health & Wellbeing (2015)
As one of the eight highlighted principles of taking an organisation-wide approach to promoting student’s emotional health and wellbeing, Public Health England highlights the need for "targeted support and appropriate referral".
Measuring Emotional Health in Children
At The Emotional Health Hub we have identified a need for a tool to measure emotions in younger children. There is currently an over-reliance on the observation of parents, teachers and other adults when exploring how children and feel.
We are currently developing an engaging, evidence-based tool to use with primary-aged children to ensure that children's voices are heard. If you work with primary-aged children and would like to help us, please see more information here.
Available Resources
In the meantime, if you would like to measure the emotional wellbeing of children and young people you work with, we have included links to some excellent sources below.
'Measuring and monitoring children and young people's mental wellbeing" is a document produced by UCL that includes an introduction and links to a variety of validated questionnaires. This document is a good starting point if you would like to know more about wellbeing and how it can be measured.
If you have not measured emotions in children and young people before, the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families has numerous evidence-based resources. Their expert advice section is a great place to start; with videos on everything from how to engage parents and carers, to understanding depression, self harm and anxiety. One particularly useful video for professionals who are new to measurement is "measuring pupil wellbeing". In this resource, Nick Tait emphasises the importance of how measures are introduced to children and young people before they complete a measure.
It should be very clear to the child or young person:
1. Why they being asked the questions
2. What is going to happen to their responses
3. Who will see responses
4. How completing a measure may benefit them