Strengthening the Circle

The COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest health crisis for generations. Research shows the negative impact that restrictions and changes have on young people’s wellbeing which risk long-term consequences for their mental wellbeing.

For the workforce, responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, maintaining support for children and young people and constantly adapting to new ways of working can lead to stress, feelings of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment.

Aim of the Programme

Strengthening the Circle programme is designed to strengthen the skills, confidence and competence of people working in non-specialist roles with children and young adults to support their mental wellbeing. This can be within a school or service or across a geographic area involving several agencies to develop a community of practice.

Approach

Each progamme is tailored to meet locally identified priorities for children and young people’s mental health with content informed by coproduction with children and young people in the area. This unique approach has proved particularly successful to developing sustainable cross sector communities of practice in local areas.

Each course is run by two experienced facilitators. Practitioners are provided with practical strength-based tools to equip children and young people with the awareness and skills to recognise their own emotional needs, manage in times of adversity and learn strategies for life which support good mental health. They are encouraged to develop reflective skills and benefit from developing awareness of their own resilience. Participants are encouraged to try out new approaches in between sessions and reflect on their learning and experiences.

Who is it for?

This programme is for people all those who have a part to play in contributing to their circle of support for children and young people in their community including school and college staff; early help and preventative services; alternative providers; voluntary and community or faith organisations; youth workers; transition staff; and SEN and care leaving teams.

Programme Structure

• The programme is run online or as blend of online and face to face sessions.
• Designed to be run with up to 20 participants.
• All training is interactive and focuses on skills development and practice.
• Each participant additionally has one-to-one time with tutors to discuss their own wellbeing, their work and their use of the resilience framework and person-centred tools.

Strengthening the Circle is an NDTi programme developed in partnership with Boingboing, a Community Interest Company dedicated to embedding the learning from resilience research into communities and professional practice, inspiring and supporting co-productive approaches. Boingboing works in partnership with the University of Brighton’s Centre of Resilience for Social Justice using research evidence and coproduction to underpin our tools and training.