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Children’s Mental Health Week 2021 supported by The Duchess of Cambridge

05/02/2021

This week was Children’s Mental Health Week 2021 – an annual week run by charity Place2Be, celebrating and promoting the importance of children’s mental health and wellbeing.

Ahead of the week, Her Royal Highness joined a video call with a group of parents whose children attend Roe Green Primary School, and are currently being homeschooled, to highlight the crucial need for parents and carers to look after their own mental wellbeing, and the impact that this has on the children in their care.

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Then, to mark the start of Children’s Mental Health Week, The Duchess of Cambridge sent a message of support encouraging children and parents to find ways to share their thoughts and feelings, which is particularly important during this challenging time.

 

Throughout the week, Place2Be worked alongside countless schools and organisations up and down the country to encourage conversations about mental health. Dedicated to improving children’s wellbeing, Place2Be is a charity providing mental health support in schools through one-to-one and group counselling using tried and tested methods backed by research. The Duchess is a patron of the charity, and The Royal Foundation has worked in close partnership with them on a number of projects, including our Heads Together campaign, and the Mentally Healthy Schools initiative.

During the week, Her Royal Highness spoke one-on-one with teachers from Ribbon Academy in County Durham about the important work they have been doing during the pandemic to support children and their families, and thanked them for their efforts. Ribbon Academy and Place2Be have been working in partnership since 2002 to provide teachers and school staff with the tools they need to support children and parents’ mental health, as well as their own.

During the call, one of the teachers The Duchess spoke to was Chris Reay, a High Level Teaching and Learning Partner, who attended Place2Be sessions as a child after a traumatic life event, and is now working at the school as an adult. Reay is one of five members of teaching staff who have completed Place2Be’s Mental Health Champions Foundation Programme in the last five months. The fully funded training programme has been made accessible to 50,000 UK teachers and school staff this year and provides a five week course on factors that contribute to positive mental health, what a child’s behaviour might be communicating about their underlying needs, and the importance of positive mental health for the adults around a child.
Find out more about Children's Mental Health Week

“You play such a vital role in looking after our children. It’s so important that you’re looked after too and have the appropriate networks and support systems to make sure you can really do the best job you possibly can.”

– THE DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE IN CONVERSATION WITH TEACHERS FROM RIBBONS ACADEMY