The Government and Ofsted place emotional wellbeing, resilience and mental health high on their agenda. There is overwhelming research highlighting the unprecedented increase of the needs of our children and young people.

 

In recent published Department for Education reports ‘Mental health and behaviour in schools’, ‘The Impact of Pupil Behaviour & wellbeing on Education outcomes’ highlight the benefits of schools providing opportunities to develop resilience, emotional wellbeing and mental health. These reports demonstrate a clear link between improved mental health, emotional wellbeing and academic achievement.

 

A consortium led by Young Minds has found that one in ten children and young people in the UK aged between 5 and 16 have a diagnosable mental health problem, and one in five of these have more than one of the main types of mental health difficulty.

 

Children and adolescents with learning disabilities are over six times more likely to have a diagnosable psychological disorder than their peers who do not have learning disabilities. 70 % children with ASD will have a mental health concern at some point in their life and 40% will have two or more.

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Children experiencing a mental health problem require specialised support from a therapist who is qualified and experienced in working with young people with learning disabilities.

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Counselling

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Cedars has worked with Kalmer Counselling for over three years. Our counsellor, Sharon, works with students at the Academy three days each week and is a familiar and friendly face to our young people.

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Sharon is highly skilled and able to give her clients (our pupils) time and space to explore their internal world to help them understand their own struggles, thoughts, feelings and behaviours. She can also help them to work through their emotional and psychological developmental milestones. Relearning these stages heightens their awareness of the self and their own belief systems.

 

As part of the therapeutic process young people use a diverse range of creative media and play. Using these media enables a clear channel of communication to emerge allowing the child to naturally express, explore and convey themselves by using an avenue that is in essence their preferred way of relating.

 

Our new space for Counselling is a safe place where children can feel relaxed. It is homely, but also equipped to provide the range of resources and creative media required for the individual child’s therapeutic needs.

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