Christmas Advent Self-Care Calendar: Check out our Advent Calendar for self-care ideas to try every day as we approach Christmas
Advent Calendar 2023
Exploring Emotions Worksheet: This worksheet is aimed to help children understand the different emotions they may feel in various situations.
Exploring Emotions Worksheet
Stepladder Plan: the stepladder approach is a step-by-step way of helping children and teenagers handle anxiety. The approach involves tackling little things before facing really scary things. The approach encourages children and teenagers to face their fears, rather than avoiding them. You can use the approach for different ages and anxieties.
Stepladder Plan
Positive affirmation cards:
Positive Affirmation Cards Dorset MHST
Creating your wellbeing toolkit: It is really important to look after our mental health and wellbeing. We all experience different emotions and some can feel more difficult. It is normal for our mood to go up and down and we can learn tools to help ourselves in these times. A wellbeing toolkit can be used when we feel anxious, angry, low or overwhelmed. We have created a leaflet to help you make your own wellbeing toolkit.
Dorset MHST Wellbeing toolkit leaflet
Transition to Secondary School: This resource is all about making a smooth transition from primary to secondary school. We know change can be nerve-wracking, unsettling, and anxiety provoking. It is okay to feel like this. Emotions are like a rollercoaster; they are never permanent and constantly changing. You may feel different emotions at the same time, for example, excited for a change but also nervous because it feels unknown. In this resource, we'll give you tips on how to handle this big shift and make it easier for you. You'll learn some awesome coping skills that'll help you when you need it. It's all about finding what works best for you, because we know everyone is unique!
How to Prepare for School Transition or Change
Worries & excitement: Moving to secondary school can bring with it lots of different emotions or feelings - like a rollercoaster of emotions. The worries and excitement activity gets you thinking about the things that you may be feeling worried about and the things you are also excited about. By completing this activity it helps you to be more aware of how you might be feeling about the move to your new school. Having this awareness can help us understand how to look after our wellbeing and mental health. By recognising the things we are worried about we can talk to someone we trust, maybe friends are experiencing similar worries or your parents/caregivers can ask teachers for help. By recognising the things we are also excited for helps us see that change can bring positive experiences as well.
Worries & Excitement
Support network: One way of helping yourself prepare and deal with transitions is by identifying people in your support network who are there to help you. These people are the ones you can turn to and reach out to them when you need to. This worksheet is available for you to download for free so you can complete your own support network to remind yourself of all the people you can turn to if you need it.
My Support Network
Problem solving: When you experience a practical worry (a worry we can do something about) it can be really helpful to problem solve and find a way to solve the difficulty to help you feel better. This free resource outlines how to problem solve practical worries step by step.
Problem Solving
Worry tree: The worry tree is a really useful tool to help children and young people organise their worries into practical (worries we can do something about) and hypothetical worries (worries we cannot do anything about).
The Worry Tree - Summer 2023
The Worry Tree - Christmas edition
Coping cards - A set of 16 cards you can cut out and use in work, school or at home. These are ideal for days where you might feel you need a little extra support or reminders of ways to manage on days that feel tougher:
Coping Cards
Parenting a Teen - in this guide we talk you through teenage brain development to understand why teenagers make decisions, need more sleep and may make riskier choices. We offer advice about how you can help your teenager while looking after yourself in the process.
Parenting a Teen
Affirmations - Sometimes stating positive phrases to yourself can make you feel better. Have a go at saying these and see how they make you feel
Affirmations
Our (S)Elf- Care Advent Calendar - Do you like what we did there? Check out our Advent Calendar for ideas to try as we approach Christmas
(S)Elf-Care Advent Calendar
The MHST has created a worksheet to get you thinking about all the positive things about you! You are unique and brilliant, and sometimes it can be hard to think about all the good things about ourselves. Download and print this worksheet, and see you how you feel afterwards
Best Things About ME
We have created a wellbeing toolkit which you can complete in your own time to help you with staying well. Please click to download as a pdf
Wellbeing toolkit for children and young people
With the Summer Holidays coming up, we have updated our Wellbeing Journal for 2o22 which you can use over the holidays. Hopefully it will give you some ideas about how to connect, get active, take notice, learn and give whilst you are off school as we know sometimes it can be difficult to think of ideas! Click on the links within the journal for more ideas and websites too.
Summer Wellbeing Journal MHST 2022
Summer Wellbeing Journal MHST
We know that Exam Stress can be a worry for many young people. We have created a handy guide with some top tips to help you manage this:
Guide to managing Exam Stress
April is Stress Awareness Month. The MHST's have created a 30 day guide to ways to help reduce your stress levels, with one activity per day. We hope that you find this useful and that it gives you some new ideas or strategies to try out. We have a new guide for 2022!
Stress Awareness Month - April 2021
Stress Less Calendar MHST 2022
Positive affirmations are phrases or statements we use to remind ourselves of our good qualities or encourage ourselves. Did you know that studies have found that with regular use, positive affirmations can be linked to greater self-esteem, reduced stress and improved sense of self? Having good self-esteem and a good sense of who we are makes us feel better in ourselves and makes us more resilient to difficulties when they arise. Here is a worksheet that you can use to try and think about the best things about me!
The Best Things About Me - Worksheet
Parent's week: We have created a parent/carer workbook around managing anxiety for anyone to have a look at and read. Click on the link below for more information.
Helping manage my child's anxieties
