Healthy Heroes

The new Healthy Heroes is an informative, year-long programme designed especially for children in P7, which aims to help them cope with the myriad issues that come with leaving junior school behind and on to secondary level education.

Karen Hillis and Rachel Horner from our AMH MensSana team launch Healthy Heroes with the pupils from St Bernard’s Primary School. Newtownabbey.

The new programme builds on Action Mental Health’s highly successful and widely subscribed Healthy Me programme which has been promoting positive mental health in Northern Ireland’s primary schools since its launch in 2017.

Since then, AMH MensSana has delivered the well-being and resilience-building programme to over 21,000 children and adult key contacts. Healthy Me was developed in partnership with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and the Royal College of Psychiatry.

Healthy Heroes aims to deal with issues of anxiety, stress and managing changes, as well as self-esteem, courage, confidence, learning differences and friendship. Crucially, it offers an evidence-based and trauma-informed approach to building life-long skills for coping with change and transitions. It is also all about celebrating individual children’s uniqueness and achievement as they move towards the first year of the next phase of their education.

Trauma–informed practice promotes a culture of safety, empowerment, and healing. Fittingly, mental health and well-being practitioners’ feedback has praised its content as ‘positive and reaffirming, empowering, inspirational, confidence and resilience-building’.

The new programme, which takes place during the academic school year, includes a staff information session, and a children’s session each term delivered by experienced MensSana Project Workers from Action Mental Health. 

Teachers will be furnished with monthly resources on individual topics, including lesson plans and presentations which support the objectives of the PDMU (Personal Development and Mutual Understanding) curriculum, for further exploration with the children.

School staff will also be supported by regular, term ‘check ins’ from their Action Mental Health Project Worker, who will also provide additional signposting and support when requested, thereby building their capacity to support mental and emotional well-being with their students during this challenging period.

At the end of each year, children and teachers can look forward to the culmination of the programme with an end of year assembly celebration.

Both children-focused projects benefit from the specialist expertise of teams within Action Mental Health’s MensSana service, which has been delivering its well-being and resilience-building projects to Northern Ireland communities since 2003.

Healthy Heroes LeafletDownload
Healthy Heroes PricingDownload

Programme Description:

  • 1 x Staff Information Session (1hr – delivered online in August / September)
  • 3 x AMH delivery sessions to class (1.5 hrs each – delivered in person during September / January and April)
  • Monthly teacher resources linked to AMH sessions & PDMU curriculum
  • AMH ‘check-ins’ each term to provide support to teaching staff
  • 1x End of Year Celebration Assembly (1hr – delivered in person in June)

To find out more or discuss any aspect of the programme delivery or pricing please contact our AMH MensSana team at:

If you are in the Southern Trust Area :
T: 028 3839 2314
E: [email protected]

If you are in all other areas in NI
T: 028 9442 5356/M: 07590 444630
E: [email protected]