Why?
The ‘Mental Health Champions’ trained and developed by The Link Project learn how to build trusting relationships with the children they work with, and also learn how best to talk with these children about mental health. These open and trusting relationships are crucial in boosting children’s confidence in talking about their mental and emotional wellbeing, helping them to express their feelings in a healthy and productive manner.
The Link Project also links to the THRIVE framework, a nationally recognised best practice approach cited in the Government’s recent Green Paper that focuses on the needs of individual children and young people. The project allows teachers to help the children they work with to feel empowered and ‘thrive’ in the control of their own wellbeing.
How?
The Link Project achieves its aims by:
- Identifying, training, developing and supporting ‘Mental Health Champions’ to discuss concerns about children and make educated referrals to targeted and specialist Children and young people’s mental health services (CYPMHS).
- Supporting Mental Health Champions in delivering the information they have learned to other staff within their workplace.
- Running a rolling programme of training events and consultations with a wide range of local organisations
- Delivers a fortnightly newsletter and area-specific locality meetings to offer key project updates.
- Building community connections between professionals.