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Happy Self-Care Sunday! 🙂

“Self-care is having the ability to put YOUR needs first and have time for you. It is prioritising YOUR growth and development, to support your physical, emotional and social needs”.

This post is for all. However, we hear a lot about teachers, Educational needs of staff during the pandemic, both on social media and on the news.

However, I wish to highlight the Health, social care and pastoral staff, who have gone above and beyond during this time pandemic too.

Particularly, Nurses, Doctors, other medical staff, hospital staff, Pastoral staff, Therapists, Counsellors, Cognitive Behaviour Therapists, Art Therapists, Drama/Music Therapists, School Nurses, Health Visitors, Social Workers, Educational Psychologists, Mentors, charities and coaches.

These people have relentlessly helped thousands of young people and adults, socially, emotionally, physically. Each and everyone of these professionals ( sorry if I have missed any therapeutic and health/social groups) that have given up time, worked hard in public facing duties and gone above and beyond.

These professionals have made effective referrals, liaison with multi-agency teams, safeguarded the public, promoted health, prevented harm, prevented disease, given evidence based advise, guidance and offered family support .

These professionals are meticulous at following policy and procedures, following Public Health h England Guidance and NICE NHS backed protocols.

Not to mention all the hours of preparation they do before seeing each young person / adult and hours of self-reflection, CPD hours and courses and conferences to keep up to date in their practice.

All these professional people need massive respect and more understanding from the public and government, about what these individuals have done and will continue to do so, going above and beyond to serve the community.

Without these professional groups, our communities would have folded.

Therefore, what can you do this Sunday for yourself?

· Can you prioritise your physical health this weekend, by going for a swim, a yoga class or the gym?

· Can you spend time in your garden or go for a mindful walk in nature?

· Can you get a few more hours of sleep on Saturday and Sunday, to recharge your batteries?

Sometimes we need to STOP and RECHARGE.

“We can’t pour from an empty cup!”

It’s Feel-Good Friday!  

You may have had a long and tiring week at work or managing time with your children but now that Friday is here, it’s time to boost your energy, let your hair down and get ready for the weekend, as you deserve to relax and have some down time!  

Here are some ways you could embrace some of that feel-good energy:  

• EXERCISE! – A home workout is one way to boost your energy levels! Head over to YouTube for some great ones. Or go for a walk. 
• SING – Listen to your favourite song or join a local choir!  
• DANCE – If you have to cook tonight, maybe you could stick the radio on and dance in the kitchen?!  
• Make time for your HOBBIES – Take time away from your work/studies to do something relaxing this weekend that you enjoy. Such as reading, painting, art work, playing football, badminton, tennis, crafting, netball, hockey.  

• Can you curl up with a book and a steaming tea / coffee? Can you go to a charity or car boot sale and pick up a bargain.  

• Can you watch a film or go to the cinema? 

• Do what you love, and this will help improve your well-being and give you a boost.  

In the spirit of World Wellbeing Week, take some time tonight to do something wonderful that will make you happy!  

Did you know that 45% of adults feel lonely in England, during their lives? This is the equivalent of 25 million people in the UK alone.

‘Loneliness’ Is not just an unpleasant feeling, but one that impacts on people’s well-being greatly and something we can all relate to in different forms.

For example, the effects of the lockdown, working from home, not socialising with friends and family, low incomes, financial strains and bereavements, have led to many mental health difficulties in the UK with fears and isolation. People have not been able to access the things that usually help them to feel well, or give them peace.

At ‘One 2 One, You Matter’, we want to help prevent loneliness and raise awareness of the impact of loneliness on our mental well- being, such as social anxiety, generalized anxiety, low mood and clinical depression.

Therefore, as ‘Loneliness awareness week’, is well under way, we encourage you to reach out to your loved ones, ring or text a friend or visit them for an hour or so, to see how they are. You never know how much someone may appreciate it.

Let’s help prevent loneliness together!

‘You’, ‘We’ and ‘I matter’.

Around 1 in 50 people in the UK struggle with ‘Body Dysmorphia’: A mental health condition where an individual spends a considerable amount of time worrying about their appearance. This may be a result of their negative self-appraisals or social media pressures to look a certain way, or from experiences of bullying.

Therefore, ‘Body Dysmorphia’ is a delicate and sensitive subject area, which can have a huge negative impact on an individual’s wellbeing and how they view themselves. Young people and adults experiencing this, can feel anxious about their appearance and get so distressed, that they may wish to self-harm, experience low mood and shame, have social anxiety, or / and experience guilt, despair and embarrassment, due to how they feel they look.

This, can then lead to low self- esteem and poor identity to who they are as individuals. Leading some people to hide from difficult emotions and participate in ‘risk taking behaviours’, such as alcoholism, drugs, isolation from others, eating disorders and excluding themselves from hobbies and peer groups. This then leading to fears about what others may feel about them and how they feel about themselves.

At ‘One 2 One You Matter’ we wish to highlight, that everyone is beautiful, unique, loved, needed and “You’re not alone”.

We would like to raise awareness of the impact that Poor self-image can have on our wellbeing and the need for further early intervention in this area. We need to improve multi-agency working, across voluntary, charitable, social, health and educational teams, in the aim to address this issue for young people and adults.

And remember, there is only one YOU. So, BE YOU!

EVERY BODY is beautiful, unique, loved and needed in society.

You Matter!

Maybe these tips may help you, when trying to identify patterns of bullying or helping your loved one in distress:

1. Notice changes in their mood i.e. anger, withdrawn, irritable, quiet.
2. Notice and discuss unexplainable injuries
3. Notice frequency of headaches, stomach aches, physical symptoms such as nausea.
4. Observe patterns of avoidance in attending school, work or social events.
5. Observe and note any changes to eating habits i.e. over eating, or not wishing to eat.
6. Observe and notice changes to sleep patterns and any nightmares
7. Notice negative thinking and the person demonstrating self loathing, or low self esteem or sadness, hopelessness and de-motivated.

Hope this helps you identify some of many signs of bullying, in my awareness section this week. Have you been bullied?

How did it make you feel?

Sending love to all.

It was Bullying awareness last week. However, I purposefully chose to respond to it this week, as bullying happens all the time and NEEDS TO STOP.

I wanted to highlight Bullying, as a topic for discussion. Please feel free to add your comments.

Bullying in the workplace / school and our community is not cool and needs to change:

Staff absence costs at least £2.4 billion per year – that’s £1 for every £40 of the total budget. A huge proportion of staff illness absence is attributed to stress or stress- related illnesses and bullying at work.

Often unknown about the stressed caused, is from senior Leadership team towards their staff. This is across Health, Education and Social care teams and in our schools and local communities.

Bullying affects our mental health for adults and children. Resulting for some people in:

• low self-esteem
• low confidence
• depression
• anxiety
• fear of people / social anxiety
• poor concentration
• low mood
• suicide ideation / self harm

Bullying can happen anywhere i.e. online, in the workplace, in school life, tutors, parents and even sadly from spiritual leaders.

I will be providing some more information about bullying in my stories / blog over the next 2 weeks.

What do you feel about Bullying?

Have you experienced bullying?

What was the impact on your mental health?

I would love to hear from you. YOU MATTER. x

Email: [email protected]

Proud to be working with Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

I am delighted to have been asked to work with the innovative ‘Eyles Monsell Primary School’. I will be providing mental health guidance, resilience building, and emotional support for targeted, vulnerable children and parents, in the aid to support recovery out of Covid-19 and continued support to people’s mental health and well-being.

Kerry Hill FCCT MAHead Teacher MA in Leadership of mental health in schools (with distinction!)2h Excited to welcome Sarah O’Sullivan to my school as part of our Recovery Programme to support our most vulnerable pupils. Sarah is a paediatric nurse, CBT accredited therapist with extensive experience supporting mental health and I’m so pleased we can offer this level of expertise to make a difference to our pupils most affected by the COVID period. #mentalhealth #covidrecovery