At Franche Community Primary School we recognise every child as an individual. At times children have feelings of worry, sadness, anxiety, low mood or they might be struggling with something else such as panic, poor sleep or stress. Alongside our positive and nurturing ethos across school, we have many tools and strategies to support the wellbeing of children and families.
Our Mental Health Waves of Support provide strategies and support for children across school.
Mental Health Award
Franche Community Primary School have been awarded the Carnegie School of Education Bronze Award for out extensive commitment to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of children, staff and families.
As part of this commitment our termly newsletter contains advice, strategies and signposting to external agencies within our community. There is a wide variety of support available within school. If you would like any advice or support, please contact a member of the Wellbeing Team (Paula Woodward, Mrs French, Mrs Wilson, Miss Caleb or Miss Plant on 01462 751788.
Trauma Informed School
We are lucky to have our TIS (Trauma Informed School) practitioner in school supporting children who have experienced childhood trauma and/or ACES (adverse childhood experiences). The ethos of this support is to provide children with an emotionally available adult who understands the impact of trauma and to help children process and work-through their emotions. Each session is very much child led and aims to provide well-being strategies and tools, time to listen and reflect well before a child might develop poor mental health.
We work very closely with our NHS Education Mental health Practitioners (EMHP). Stacey Pritchard, Hannah Salsby and Sarah Wilkes work with children and families on school site each week. This support is accessible through a referral process and is often an escalation from Wave 1 and 2 support put in place at school and at home. The EMHP team are able to support anxiety, low mood, thought challenging, sleep hygiene, mild phobias, worry management and behaviour strategy support for parents.
A drop-in session for parents to receive advice and support takes place the first Wednesday of each half-term for on the spot support and advice. Very often a referral will follow the drop-in which will lead to longer term support across a number of weeks.
Please contact Paula Woodward or Sarah French on 01562 751788 to book into the drop-in.
Stacey Pritchard
Senior Education Mental Health Practitioner
Hannah Salsby
Education Mental Health Practitioner
Sarah Wilkes
Education Mental Health Practitioner
We are very lucky at Franche to have two school therapy dogs that work with children who are struggling emotionally or with their mental health.
Harvey and Izzy bring a different kind of emotional support to children that adults cannot provide. Children enjoy spending time with them and take part in a variety of tasks i.e. training, reading, grooming and going for walks in our extensive grounds. The impact of spending time with a therapy dog has been hugely positive for many children across school.
Harvey
Harvey loves nothing more than supporting children's wellbeing while having a story read to him. His favourite book is 'Claude in the Country' by Alex T Smith. Claude is no ordinary dog! A quiet walk in the country turns into a busy day on the farm when Claude ends up mucking out the pigs, feeding the chickens, and lassoing a fearsome bull!