emotional wellbeing - Phase Hitchin

Are you feeling lonely?

It's mental health awareness week this week (9-15 May). This is a week that the charity The Mental Health Foundation uses to raise awareness of a different mental health experience each year. This year the focus is on loneliness. Along with many other emotional and mental health struggles, it's a

bbc news

The struggle is real

A recent BBC News article reported a huge rise in severe mental health difficulties in children and young people in the past year, sadly this is a statistic that is very true and close to home. Over the past year we have seen an increase in the number of children

emotional wellbeing

Learning to be vulnerable

In this guest blog friend of Phase, Rebekah Bacon, talks to us about vulnerability - what it is, when we notice it and how we can benefit from being more vulnerable with people. A little while ago, I sat down with Kieran (the director of Phase) to talk about vulnerability.

burnout

Avoiding burnout

Over stretched, beyond capacity, burnout – these may be terms that were not part of you vocabulary before COVID19 and the beginning of the pandemic, however they may well be part of your everyday speech or thought now. As we approach the year anniversary of the first lockdown many people are

anxiety

Looking ahead and moving forward...

Our Director, Kieran, takes stock of what we have ahead of us as a nation (and town of Hitchin) and offers practical advice for this last stretch of lockdowns and restrictions... It was exciting news from PM Boris Johnson as he announced the roadmap for the way out of lockdown

busy

Quarantine Musings...

This week the Phase Vice-Chair John Maguire tells us about how he has been coping with lockdown, quarantine and all things WFH... My eldest son John lives in Malta and fourth time lucky we were able to visit him at the beginning of November and then had to quarantine for

mentoring

Mentoring Online

At Phase we are passionate about equipping children and young people so that they don't just survive but thrive as they journey through life. We love to help children and young people build good wellbeing and resilience. At Phase we have the opportunity to do this in a number of

wellbeing

How have you got on?

At a recent On Your Mark’s workshop run by Phase with Year 6 students we asked students to show, on a spectrum of extremely excited to extremely worried, how they were feeling about starting at Secondary school next year. I was talking to the students who were extremely excited.

perspective

Start how you mean to go on

New school year, new start. A new start to me often feels like starting a new exercise book when I was at school, where I would promise to myself to keep this one neat, clean and tidy. Sadly it was something that I rarely managed. But I’m old and

resilience

Top tips to build resilience

Resilience is a bit of a buzz word right now, but what is it, why is it needed and most importantly, how do we build it? In this blog post I want to answer these questions and give you 10 great tips on how to build your resilience whether your

Young People

More than an Emoji...

There are in total 2,823 emojis- I definitely couldn’t tell you what they all are! Most of us, I imagine probably use emojis when texting – whether it’s a smile, heart, thumbs up! I found out this week that you can even create an emoji to now look

fun

December Wellbeing Challenge 2018

DECEMBER!!! You're finally here. I think it’s time for Christmas music. It’s never too early for Christmas music I hear you shout and I’m inclined to agree. (turns up the music a little louder to drown out those that object 🎄) New month, new challenge. And to round

reflection

November Wellbeing Challenge 2018

We have finally reached the penultimate month in 2018 and if you feel anything like I do then this year has flown by. A new month brings with it a brand-new challenge. The focus of our challenge this month is all about reflection. Normally the end of the year brings

wellbeing

October Wellbeing Challenge 2018

October is here and that means a new challenge! This month’s challenge is a social media detox 😱 Wait don’t close the page. I know, I know this is going to be a real challenge for some of you. It will definitely be a challenge for me. Why even

emotional wellbeing

July Wellbeing Challenge 2018

July is here!!!! This month's challenge is to keep a gratitude journal. For the next 31 days write down between 3 - 5 things you are grateful for. We had a go of this back in 2016 just for a week. If you want to have a read of how

Art challenge

How I won even though I failed

This post is supposed to be all about how I got on with the June Wellbeing challenge. I write them, I decide what we're doing, I even Instagrammed it and this is the point where I show you some amazing artwork 😳but he’s the thing I didn’t do

Lillian's Space

Lillian's Space .. Peer Support

We have the wonderful Lillian taking over the blog again and this time she's sharing her experience as a Youth Mental Health Champion. If you missed her last post check it out here. During the last academic year, I trained to be a Youth Health Champion. This was an amazing

creativity

Creativity

When did you last do something really creative? What activities help you use your imagination? What does creativity mean to you? I think creativity can sometimes feel a bit exclusive - like you're either a creative person, or you're not. Maybe you can't identify with the artist or the potter

wellbeing challenge

June Wellbeing Challenge 2018

Welcome to June, This month is all about creativity. Now I know some of you if you are rolling your eyes and thinking oh no 😱 I hate drawing whilst others of you are jumping for joy. This month your challenge is an art challenge, but you have a few options.

ditch the news

Good news

This month has been all about ditching the negative and replacing it with positive. I hope you've found it helpful and shared some of the interesting articles you've found along the way. Here are just 3 of my favs. A story of kindnes, Care BnB and This bank that's writing

emotional wellbeing

Shine a light on ... Anxiety (part 1)

Everyone I know has anxiety. Not the kind of anxiety that you feel before you speak in public, or when you see a massive spider scuttling towards you. I mean, the kind of anxiety that hangs over your life, that is disproportionate to your circumstances and that prevents you from

ditch the news

May Wellbeing Challenge

Ditch the news April Showers bring May flowers. Spring is time of hope and new life, where things that looked like they were dead have new life. Yellow is normally the colour that is associated with spring but with the invention of things like social media and 24hr news outlets

change

Change

Ever wondered if change could be easier? If we could skip the uncomfortable part, straight to the part where it's fun again? Alas, change doesn't work like that. I'm going through a year of change in my life. The truth is as much as known these changes are coming, it

honesty

March Wellbeing Challenge 2018

Welcome to March, How did we get to the third month of the year already? Your challenge for this month is all about honesty. For the next 30 days be honest about your thoughts and feelings. I deliberated a lot about setting this as a challenge because I'm pretty sure

kindness

Kindness .. food for thought

The dictionary defines kindness as the quality of being gentle, caring, and helpful. Or it is an act that is a spontaneous gesture of goodwill towards someone or something I've been thinking a lot about kindness over the last few weeks simply because I've set myself a task of being