Anti-Bullying Week – AMH’s Healthy Me Programme helps kids through tough times

As Anti-Bullying week continues, Action Mental Health is sharing the essential principles of its specialist children’s programme, Healthy Me.

As part of its engaging and interactive programme, Healthy Me helps children deal with diverse areas of emotional and mental health, including bullying, and aims to:

• Promote social and emotional well-being through problem-solving, coping skills, conflict management and managing feelings
• Improve the emotional and social well-being and resilience of children
• Encourage help-seeking behaviour in children and help them identify sources of support
• Improve children’s emotional literacy

 “There was P7 class in which a number of boys were on Snapchat and some of them were saying to one boy: “Go on and kill yourself; your mummy doesn’t love you anyway.”

“Some P7 boys said on Snapchat they were going to self-harm to look cool.”

“In our area, some children from ethnic minorities are teased by the others for their lack of fluency in English.”

“There are some children of higher ability who realise that others are struggling and are less capable and they can become the victims of hurtful talk.”

“Children who carry a bit more weight than the average child can often become the victim of teasing.”

Catherine Cunningham, project worker with Healthy Me addressed this anecdotal evidence and pointed to Healthy Me as a means to getting help to children when they need it most.

“Much of Healthy Me is focused on signposting adults who children can talk to, to help them if they are struggling in anyway, and with any of the childhood teasing and unhelpful playground behaviours that they face.

“At around this age group, children can be prone to name-calling and can become aware of their abilities, in comparison to others, and they can also start to struggle with their emotions.

“They can get very angry, especially in the playground and Healthy Me helps children work through people’s differences and helps illustrate the need to respect those differences.”

To find out more about Healthy Me and how your school or community group could benefit from this helpful programme contact the:

AMH MensSana team at:
T: 028 9442 5356 E: [email protected]
(all areas except Southern Trust Area)

T: 028 3839 2314 E: [email protected]
(Southern Trust Area)