Articles & Resources

Activities
Nicky Edwards

Children’s Activity: Feelings Iceberg

Managing emotions When we see children’s behaviours, actions and responses we can get caught up in focussing on the symptoms and miss the causes of the issues. Our feelings can be likened to an iceberg. The tip of the iceberg, what is above the water, represents the feelings, emotions, responses, behaviours and reactions that children

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Adult Mental Health
Nicky Edwards

Co-Regulation: Why, to help in a crisis, we need to be a cucumber

Have you ever noticed, that when a toddler has a tantrum, and the parent starts to escalate, that the toddler escalates even more? No matter how much you tell someone having a panic attack to calm down, they just don’t calm down? That if you yell at an angry person to chill out, they just

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Activities
Nicky Edwards

Children’s Activity: Planning and Organising Time

Did you ever struggle to get organised? Faced with lots to do, one of a number of things happen: Some people dig deep, get things in order and get going Some people look at it, feel like it’s impossible and find something else to do Some people feel completely overwhelmed and are frozen in anxiety/panic/tears

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Overwhelm
Nicky Edwards

The Pineapple and Potato – A Story about Mental Health

Mental health isn’t a competition. Comparing one person’s mental health to another, It is like comparing a potato and a pineapple. And, let’s face it…. You can’t compare a pineapple and potato So, we cannot minimise one person’s mental health on the basis of a perception the other is worst   So, today, I’m sharing

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Activities
Nicky Edwards

Children’s Activity: Self-esteem Charts

Self-esteem Sometimes, children can find it challenging to recognise their strengths. Helping them to recognise the things that are positive about them, the values that others appreciate and their skills and talents can help them to keep the world in context. So, why not try this activity. Simply download the self-esteem recorder and encourage children

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Routines
Nicky Edwards

6 ways to improve children’s sleep hygiene

For many, bedtime can become a stressful time so, why is sleep hygiene so important? Developing effective sleep routines for children can be a really challenging situation. With the impact of the pandemic, lockdown and constantly changing routines, for many this has been accentuated. So, how can we promote positive sleep? In my previous article,

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Activities
Nicky Edwards

Children’s Activity: Little Circles of Calm

How can we help children to calm their minds? Sometimes, we all can find ourselves feeling a little overwhelmed, stressed or exhausted. In those moments, it can feel challenging to work out what we need/want to do to help us feel better. Calm Flower Circles So, this week, we are sharing our calm circles with

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Safeguarding
Nicky Edwards

Sexual harassment in schools – Ofsted’s 2021 Review

This week, following the testimonies shared on website ‘everyone’s invited‘ where young people all over the UK highlighted sexual abuse and harassment in their schools, Ofsted released their rapid review into sexual harassment and assault in schools and colleges (You can read a full copy here). The findings, were by all means, harrowing. The review

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Activities
Nicky Edwards

Children’s Activity: Life Wheel Assessments

How busy is too busy?  How quiet is too quiet?  Sometimes, we can find ourselves in a situation where our mood is dropping and we cannot quite work out the reason why. This can be for a number of reasons, but frequently, when we examine our lives things have fallen out of sync. The issues

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Activities
Nicky Edwards

7 Safeguarding Scenarios for Early Years Settings

Safeguarding children and young people is an ongoing responsibility for all staff working in education and care settings. Child welfare and well-being is a priority and fast responses and early intervention are critical to outcomes. Regardless of age, sex, religion, belief or sexual orientation, all children and young people have a right to protection from

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Activities
Nicky Edwards

Children’s Activity: Positivity Flowers

How can we help children to identify the positives in their world? It can be an easy habit to fall into, when we get caught up in what we did not achieve today, or what went wrong, but helping children to develop a daily habit of gratitude and positivity can have a positive impact on

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Anxiety
Nicky Edwards

8 Ways to Support Child Mental Health

Whilst ‘mental health’ is the hashtag of the moment, recognising the signs of mental health (our introduction courses can be found here) and how to support children to put in place ongoing strategies to support themselves is imperative for long term well-being. Mental health is defined as: ‘a state of wellbeing in which the individual

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Activities
Nicky Edwards

Children’s Activity: Hand Breathing

Some days, our stress levels peak, our anxiety heightens and we can feel our hearts race…..so, how do we help children calm everything down? Shift the nervous system When we are stressed, we move into our sympathetic nervous system – this is our fight or flight system. When we are working in our sympathetic nervous

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Adult Mental Health
Nicky Edwards

10 ways to increase your self-care

When we get caught on the hamster wheel, it can quickly feel that we are stuck. The emotional and psychological fatigue which follows consistently pushing ourselves to be everything and do everything can begin to take it’s toll. Whilst it can feel a bit fluffy to talk about self-care, it is incredibly important. When working

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Activities
Nicky Edwards

Children’s Activity: Sensory Playdough Recipe

When it comes to calming the mind and connecting with senses, playdough is a long term favourite. Playdough has many benefits for children: It calms the mind It supports the development of fine motor skills It develops hand-eye coordination It encourages creativity It inspires imagination It strengthens hand muscles It supports strength, dexterity and control

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Anxiety
Nicky Edwards

40 Regulatory Activities to Support Anxious Children

When anxiety affects a child they can find it challenging to know what to do. For some children they may have the ability to express their emotions and communicate their needs to you, however, for some, feelings can escalate quickly. There are some simple activities that we can keep in our tool kits to support

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Activities
Nicky Edwards

Children’s Activity: Nature Activities for Mental Health

As it’s Mental Health Awareness Week – and the theme is nature – we have put together some activities for you to enjoy at home, nursery or school to encourage everyone to get outside and enjoy some serotonin, reduce their stress and increase their well-being.  Nature is a wonderful asset to mental health because: It

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Anxiety
Nicky Edwards

Supporting Teen Mental Health Post Exams

With assessments underway for this years GCSEs and A-Levels, are there additional considerations that we need to make for young people’s well-being and mental health after a year of disruptions? Whilst every year’s assessments can cause stress and anxiety to young people sitting exams, following the disruptions to education from the pandemic, taking into consideration

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