Next month, from February 5th – 11th is Children’s Mental Health Week. It’s a week that shines a spotlight on children’s mental health and is vitally important to MWOTY 2023 Community Change winner, Amy Smythe a.k.a The Worry Wizard.
We caught up with Amy to find out more about the awareness period and how The Worry Wizard is using it to platform children’s voices and support their wellbeing.
Why is Children’s Mental Health Week such an important time for The Worry Wizard?
“It is important because, for a whole week children’s mental health is in the spotlight and people seem to be listening. Hundreds of schools, children and their grownups take part, offering us a chance to ensure all our Worry Wizard schools prioritise wellbeing within their community. This year’s theme is ‘My Voice Matters’, a particularly important theme at a time when children’s mental health is in crisis.
“It is vital we support children to find their voice and share it. Perhaps even more importantly, when children do share their thoughts and feelings, we need to make sure those around them listen and respond in a meaningful way. For The Worry Wizard, Children’s Mental Week offers us a brilliant opportunity to show that engaging with mental health can be gentle, fun and imaginative. Sometimes, the term ‘mental health’ becomes synonymous with struggle and difficulty; it can feel problem-soaked.
“We support children to realise that each of us has mental health, just as we each have physical health, and we need to actively look after it. For when we do, when we check in with our wellbeing regularly, notice how comfortable we feel and then respond, we can significantly impact our everyday lives.”
Recent NHS benchmarking showed that 213,000 children and young people were on waiting lists for Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services last year. How are these waiting lists affecting them and how can services like The Worry Wizard help?
“The waiting lists are impacting children and young people enormously. Evidence shows that early intervention reduces the scale and duration of support required whilst delayed intervention has the exact opposite effect. It is not just the children and young people waiting for services who are impacted, it also significantly impacts the mental and physical health of those who are caring for them. Watching your child wait for the support they need, only to be told the waiting lists can be as long as two years, if not more, is devastating.
“We ask children to be courageous when they are struggling and to share their struggle. Often, when they do find the Courage to do this, the support is not there. There are massive gaps in provision, a void that no one steps into and helps a child out of. Many, MANY children fall into and remain in the gap. This is simply not good enough. In such an overwhelmed system, it is not just the health of those waiting for services that is struggling, the health of all those trying to support it also deteriorates.
“Young people make up around 18 per cent of demand on NHS mental health services, but receive just eight per cent of the budget (Young Minds). We stand with Young Mind’s call for every young person to get the support they need, when they need it.”
You have a free “From Worries to Wellbeing” webinar taking place on 1st February, what might people expect if they join it?
“Our hope is that everyone who attends our webinar will leave feeling strengthened to share gentle and honest conversations about grief and loss with a child. Children can experience many different types of grief and loss in childhood. Adults can be filled with fear that by speaking with their child about this they may ‘cause harm’ or ‘get it wrong’; these fears can result in them saying nothing at all.
“In 2021, we created an animation and toolkit, called ‘Together Not Alone’, designed to inspire lots of questions for children and their key grownups to wonder about together. This free-to-all resource is being used by NHS teams, charities such as Together for Short Lives, as well as children’s hospices and schools. We are breaking down barriers to talking, opening up honest communications and helping grownups feel confident to take these conversations wider so that children feel supported.
“We will talk about this resource at our webinar and share other creative ways we can impact the feelings of loneliness and social isolation bereaved children and young people can experience.”
How have things developed for the Worry Wizard since the MWOTY 2023 awards?
“MWOTY 2023 has grown The Worry Wizard’s visibility and helped me to meet people who can take our work to the children and grownups who need us most. We describe ourselves as a small – but mighty! – team. It is a continual struggle to both do the work and tell the story of doing the work. We know that only by telling the story of our work do we find more ways to reach the children who most need our support at the point they most need it.
“MWOTY has also introduced me to so many inspiring women who are developing my own ideas about how best to develop and deliver our work. Trying to positively impact children’s mental health can sometimes feel like a lonely journey. Since MWOTY 2023, I now have the most incredible group of women to turn to for advice, guidance and, sometimes, a much-needed injection of encouragement and belief. I feel so grateful to be part of a community designed to lift each other up, amplify each other’s voice and ensure the best impact for those we support.”
What’s coming next for The Worry Wizard in 2024?
“In 2024, we will support more children to actively engage with their wellbeing through Worry Wizard content. We have already onboarded more Worry Wizard schools this year who now receive our ‘Introducing Wellbeing’ for primary age children. Schools can fund this themselves, but we are also very proud of our partnerships with charitable foundations such as the Blue Sky Foundation, the Financial Planning Corporation and the Lancashire and Merseyside Community Foundation who fully fund this programme to primary schools across Merseyside.
“We are continuing our work with the NHS to deliver a programme of support to children and their key grownups who are waiting for CAMHS support. This is a psychotherapeutic, play based intervention designed to build courage and resilience in children and their key grownups. We are also growing our work with Nugent, supporting them to use our therapeutic content to positively impact the children and grownups they support. This work began with us providing a specific offer to their adoptive families. We are now exploring how we can use all our content to enable all their beneficiaries to engage with their mental health and begin to explore ways to support it.
“We will also continue our partnership with Bigfoot Arts Education, combining the therapeutic approach of The Worry Wizard with Bigfoot’s creative approach to education, this range of programmes uses drama as a vehicle to positively impact children’s mental health. Each programme uses creative activities to spark curiosity about mental health and wellbeing, working to increase not just the emotional literacy of each individual but the collective emotional literacy of the community they are part of.
“Finally, we have new projects on the way too, such as delivering our grief and loss workshop, ‘Here for You’ to families in Greater Manchester. ‘Here for You’ offers children and adults a safe space to come together to watch our animation ‘Together Not Alone’ and participate in imaginative activities that spring from key themes in the animation.”
How can people get involved?
“We would love more primary schools to join our Worry Wizard Community. Our low input, high impact entry level programme, ‘Introducing Wellbeing’, is packed with everything schools need to offer their children a gentle, fun and imaginative exploration of Wellbeing. Schools can, and do, choose to fund this themselves but we are keen to work with more charitable foundations or local businesses who wish to positively impact the wellbeing of schools in their local area. It is an extremely challenging time for schools financially and this type of support is hugely impactful. We are delighted with the impact that the primary schools we are currently working with are reporting.”
What messages do you think are most important for people to hear Children’s Mental Health Week?
“That children and young people’s mental health is in a state of crisis, and we need to radically improve support services. That one single, uniform response to mental health and wellbeing does not work for everyone. We need to find ways to identify the needs of every individual before exploring how best to respond to those needs.
“At The Worry Wizard, when we work with a child who needs support, but they cannot access the support we offer, at that point we get curious and ask, if not that, then what? When we support children to develop a shared language for exploring worries and wellbeing it helps everyone to feel more confident to connect with their own wellbeing and respond to it.
“We need to open-up new conversation pathways around mental health and wellbeing. When those who care for someone are supported to gain a greater insight into their emotional world, they are better equipped to support it.”
