Action for Children calls for emotional wellbeing support as Covid lockdown bites
With one in eight children and young people in NI struggling with emotional difficulties, Action for Children is calling on Education Minister Peter Weir to invest in school funds that support their emotional wellbeing. Linda Stewart finds out more from the charity's Blues Team
Both Covid lockdowns have been hard to deal with - but in different ways, according to Niamh Armstrong, a Year 10 student at St Louise's Comprehensive School in west Belfast.
The 14-year-old pupil says she had a particular reason for anxiety during the spring lockdown last year.
"At the time my sister was pregnant and I was worried about trying to keep her safe," she says. "It's a lot different this time - in a way, it's harder, but in another way it's just different, because now we have my nephew with us."
Niamh says that this time round, she is finding the pressure of schoolwork harder to deal with, and admits she has found it overwhelming at times.
But what has really helped has been the Blues Programme delivered by Action for Children, aimed at helping to support young people to focus on their wellbeing and mental health during lockdown.
Action for Children says one in eight children and young people are struggling with emotional difficulties, and a Youth Wellbeing Survey revealed that anxiety and depression is 25% more common in children compared to other parts of the UK.
When schools closed for lockdown, Action for Children adapted their resources to deliver remote sessions and also created Bouncing Back, a new offering to help meet the specific needs that came with the pandemic.
Year 10 St Louise’s Comprehensive School pupil Emma Donaghy
The charity is now urging Education Minister Peter Weir to bid for some of the unspent £300m in Covid funding to invest in school programmes that support the emotional wellbeing of young people.
Emma O'Neill, Blues Service coordinator, says: "Our Bouncing Back virtual programme was set up as a direct response to the pandemic and the demand from schools to offer continued assistance to the needs of children and young people during these difficult times.
"Bouncing Back focuses on building resilience and addressing young people's emotional wellbeing needs.
"It's a vital resource for the times we're currently facing as we see higher rates of mental health and wellbeing problems in young people across Northern Ireland."
Niamh says many of her friends are feeling the impact of the lockdown worse than she is: "My friends are finding the lockdown situation a lot harder as they're used to going out more and going to the cinema - so it's hard for them."
She is now several weeks into the Blues Programme which is being delivered in remote classroom sessions to Year 10s in her school.
Year 10 St Louise’s Comprehensive School pupil Niamh Armstrong
The programme is an evidence-based six-week group intervention for 13 to 19-year-olds which is based on the principles of cognitive behavioural therapy and aims to reduce mental health symptoms and boost confidence.
Using early intervention and prevention strategies, young people have the opportunity to learn and practice skills proven to be effective in decreasing mental health symptoms that they can then use both in their current day to day lives and in the future.
"I think it's good that you're able to talk about your feelings, but you're also able to hear about other people. We have activities both inside and outside school, and some of our mentors get involved in some of the activities and help us through it," Niamh says.
"For example, you have a mood diary - you have to say a trigger that would have made you upset. Each week, every task is different - one week, we have to come up with positive counter thoughts and the next week you're adding a bit more to the counter thought to turn your negative feelings into better feelings."
Niamh says that coming up with a positive take on an upsetting situation - a positive counter thought - can really change your mood.
"If you're thinking 'Oh, I failed a test and I feel a bit depressed', to change your mood, you say to yourself 'I did my best and that's all I can do'.
"So your feelings beforehand might have been sad and angry, but your thoughts are now a bit more relieved, less stressed and a bit happier."
Since young people returned to the classrooms in September 2020, the Blues Bouncing Back programme has supported 1,500 young people across Northern Ireland.
Ahead of the pandemic, almost one in two young people aged 11-19 years had experienced at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (47.5%) and the pandemic has added more layers of stress on the whole population, Action for Children says.
Recognising the need for a recovery plan, the charity created resources to help young people focus on their wellbeing and mental health during lockdown, when they're missing so many of the familiar parts of their daily lives.
Declan Brown (46), pastoral vice principal at St Louise's, says students are still following their timetable, albeit from home, and it means the teachers are able to check in with them regularly.
"We want to have as much normality as possible in terms of learning, and we had a lot of feedback recently through surveys from parents who think that, compared with last lockdown, keeping them busy has been really useful," he says.
He says some children are struggling with the constraints of lockdown and many are feeling overwhelmed for a range of reasons, including workload and the lack of individual time face to face with teachers.
"It's a patchwork of different feelings and emotions, a range of different pressures, whether school based, social based or emotionally based, and they change from day to day."
Mr Brown says the children taking part in the Blues programme work through a series of sessions, allowing them to recognise their emotions, internalise things differently, and change their actions based on their feeling and emotions and turn them into positive actions.
It's vital that schools don't just work on their own and pastoral leaders in the area have been meeting up through the West Belfast Area Community Learning to sharing ideas and practices to find a way forward.
"It's useful, not just for schools to act in isolation, but to get together and share expertise and knowledge of what's out there to share with students together," Mr Brown says.
Another Year 10 pupil at St Louise's, Emma Donaghy, says she found lockdown harder the first time, but the programme is proving beneficial.
"A lot of the time, it was very overwhelming and scary, and you didn't really know what was going to happen next," she says.
"I felt a bit at the time like I didn't know what was going to happen and how much schoolwork we were going to get that week, so it was a struggle.
"We're now doing more live lessons where you can communicate with your teachers, and it really helps having more communication this lockdown.
"The Blues Programme helped to improve my view of the current situation, to think more positively about it.
"It helps to think about what you have - there's more time with your family when you're in lockdown and more Facetime with your friends, which is good.
"It helps to take away the positive side of things.
"The Blues Programme helps us get the opportunity to talk about our feelings and learn coping strategies.
" You take the triggers and emotions and feelings and try to look at it in a much more positive way.
"It really does help with your coping mechanisms.
"If you change your thoughts and actions, your feelings will be more positive - they are all connected in some way, so if you start thinking in a more positive way, the outcome will be more positive.
"Then if you reward yourself for using the strategies they've given us, you're more likely to use them again."
Emma admits that some of her friends are struggling as well.
"It's hard not being able to see your friends, because you would have seen them every day at school," she says.
"I think everybody at the moment is feeling lots of different emotions and this helped, to talk about your mental health.
"It's a really sensitive subject so the more you talk about it the more comfortable you will feel about opening up to people."
A Year 11 student at Strabane Academy who chose not to be identified, undertook the Bouncing Back programme during lockdown and found it very useful.
"I think everyone could benefit from the Bouncing Back programme. The sessions can really help your mental health in a lot of ways.
"I learnt how to recognise my triggers for low moods and was taught some methods of refocusing your mind on something positive when those triggers hit," she says.
Action for Children says the evidence suggests that early interventions are key to limiting longer term impacts.
In light of the recent admission that £300m in Covid funding at Stormont has yet to be allocated this financial year and the call from the Finance Minister for proposals for bids "as a matter of urgency", Action for Children are calling for the Education Minister Peter Weir to bid for funds to invest more in school programmes that support the emotional wellbeing of our children and young people.
NI Director at Action for Children, Lorna Ballard, said: "We know from our services that many young people are struggling at home without their usual support networks, having to cope with the pressures of remote learning, family health fears, loneliness and pressure in the home and fears about their future - all the while being bombarded by social media and depressing headlines.
"The government must commit to adequate funding and specialist services to tackle the surge in demand caused by the pandemic and stop a generation of children from suffering in silence.
"Our own school programmes show how vital it is to step in early with support to stop problems in their tracks and dial down the agony these young people face."
