St Anthony’s School in Thanet was recently awarded the Kent School Award for Resilience and Emotional Wellbeing. This Award has been developed by HeadStart Kent, which is funded by The National Lottery Community Fund. The Award recognises and celebrates everything schools do to support young people’s emotional wellbeing through a whole school approach.

Achieving the Award is a way of endorsing the standard of work that has been carried out in schools to meet the guidance provided by the Public Health England report ‘Promoting children and young people’s emotional health and wellbeing – a whole school and college approach’.

Head teacher Robert Page and assistant head teacher Abi Cranson receive the award from Lesley Game (right) chairman of KCC’s Children’s, Young People and Education Cabinet Committee

By using the Resilience Toolkit and online resources, schools have assessed their approach to emotional wellbeing and resilience in their settings and have identified and actioned change to include the whole school community. They have then reviewed the impact that has been made as a result of their whole school activity.

St Anthony’s, in Margate, was the fourth school to achieve the award after Homewood School in Tenterden, Westlands School in Sittingbourne and St John’s Catholic Comprehensive School in Gravesend, which all received their awards last year.

Mrs Abi Cranson, assistant head teacher at St Anthony’s, said: “We are so happy to receive this award. St Anthony’s staff and pupils work really hard supporting each other and making the school a safe and happy place to be. HeadStart has had a huge impact on St Anthony’s and supported us on our journey to be a resilient school. Staff, pupils, parents and families have all benefited from training, events and activities that support good wellbeing and improve mental health.”

Sue Chandler, Kent County Council’s Cabinet Member for Integrated Children’s Services, said: “It’s really good to recognise the fantastic work our schools are doing with HeadStart to improve children’s resilience and make sure the good mental health of our children is a priority.”

The Resilience Toolkit, which guides schools through assessing their approach to resilience and wellbeing using the whole school approach principles, is freely available to schools. It can be found on the online Kent Resilience Hub, which will continue to host tools, resources and best practice for Kent, including targeted resources for individual work with students.

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Notes to journalists:

Further details about HeadStart Kent can be found at http://www.headstartkent.org or alternatively, email headstart@kent.gov.uk

About HeadStart:

• Kent County Council was awarded £10 million to support young people’s emotional wellbeing and resilience over five years. The funding is from The National Lottery Community Fund, which is the largest funder of community activity in the UK
• HeadStart Kent is part of Children, Young People and Education Services and aims to help young people cope better when faced with difficult circumstances in their lives, preventing them from experiencing common mental health problems
• HeadStart Kent aims to make changes through schools, families and within communities and has been designed with young people at its heart to make young people’s mental wellbeing everybody’s business
• The HeadStart Kent Mission Statement was developed by young people and their families and is as follows: “By 2020 Kent young people and their families will have improved resilience, by developing their knowledge and lifelong skills to maximise their own and their peers’ emotional health and wellbeing; so to navigate their way to support when needed in ways which work for them.”
• Children and young people living in Kent, together with their parents, have told HeadStart Kent what support they need to build their resilience:

• • My Wellbeing is not impacted by the pressure to achieve and be perfect
  • There is always someone for me to talk to
  • People around me understand wellbeing and how to promote it

The programme is on track to deliver the programme to the planned number of 133 schools over the five years

• The National Lottery Community Fund is the largest funder of community activity in the UK. It puts people in the lead to improve their lives and communities, often through small, local projects
• It is responsible for giving out 40% of the money raised by National Lottery players for good causes. Last year it awarded £583 million and supported around 12,000 projects across the UK for health, education, environment and charitable purposes

Since June 2004 it has awarded over £8 billion to projects that change the lives of millions of people