With the high profile topic of Positive Mental Health, so prevalent at the moment, the staff and pupils of St Fergus’ N.S. are embarking on  mental fitness in the next two terms. Mrs Gee and Mrs Kennelly have recently become trained in the Friends for Life programme, which endeavours to promote the skills of self-esteem and resilience in our young people and will begin teaching this wonderful, research based series of sessions to Rang 3& 4 and to the Infants in the coming weeks. The programme provides pupils with coping strategies for situations that may cause anxiety and worry for many-a skill that we all need in life. In fact never has a programme such as this been more needed for young people. This is being delivered as  part of the S.P.H.E. curriculum.

The main premise of  the 12 sessions is that by changing our thoughts from Red (negative/unhelpful) thoughts to Green (positive/helpful) thoughts that we can become happier, more resilient people. The idea is that we learn to like ourselves and believe that each and every individual and life form on the planet is valuable because of our uniqueness. That even though we may not be “the best” at something, that is ok! By changing our thoughts, we can change the outcomes in our lives. It provides pupils with the skills and thoughts needed to help them through the process of coming to a solutions that works for them

It also reminds pupils of the importance of having a positive “Support Team” in their lives and the fact that they in turn are part of the support team for other people. As an introduction to this concept, I showed the pupils the following moving clip, which was shown to those of us training in the project.

Third and Fourth class will begin their lessons next week, with Infants beginning Fun Friends after Easter. We look forward to starting these sessions with enthusiasm and positivity. Should you wish to learn more about the valuable series of programmes please check out the their website.http://friendsprograms.com/

The following is a clip from Niall Breslin’s presentation to the Dáil’s Committee on Wellness, Mental Health and Wellbeing last week. It is powerful viewing and certainly shows the importance of building skills for life in our young people.