Wellbeing Matters

13/11/2025

Fuming whilst reading ADHD assessment criteria...
‘Talks excessively’….excessively for who I have to ask?!

29/09/2025

Please read and consider signing if this resonates with you...

Call on the Government to introduce a national wellbeing measure, so that young people's voices are heard and we have the insight to make a real change. Reverse the decline. Add your name.

12/07/2025

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30/04/2025

How are we educating and protecting our youth? Do so many adults really care so little for children, young people. Do so many me really think and feel this way about women, including children / teens, women who could be their own child, sister, niece? Much more needs to be done. The loss of youth services is highlighted in this article. Certainly I have see a huge change in the last 15 years as this article alludes to. The internet is the largest facilitator of this issue in my experience…

When Jess Davies was 15, a boy leaked pictures she’d shared with him. At 18, she was a glamour model. A few years later, another man violated her trust. Then she fought back

10/04/2025

Jenny was only 6 when I first met her and her parents, but she was very sad. She would cry every evening and her parents were worried. We don’t know how to help, they said. She just tells us to go away, that we don’t understand.

It turned out that Jenny had been struggling at school and started saying that she didn’t want to attend. Her parents had been advised that the problem was that home was too pleasant, and that they should make it less fun. They’d been told to make all the things that she enjoyed rewards for going to school. No games together, unless you’ve done your homework. No bedtime story, until you stop saying that you don’t want to go to school tomorrow.

It had ‘worked’. Jenny had stopped complaining about school and was attending regularly. Her teachers were pleased. They said that she was well-behaved and it was good to see how things had changed now that she was in school every day. She got awards at the end of each term for attendance.

But after school, it was like Jenny was flat. She had no spark. She didn’t talk about what things were like at school any more, but she didn’t want to invite anyone home. She did her homework without protest, but also without interest. She looked like she was going through the motions and by the end of each week she looked grey.

It’s not really surprising. Jenny was distressed by school, and instead of anyone asking why, she was being punished for expressing her distress. She was being prevented from telling her parents how she felt, in case they stopped her doing things she enjoyed. Every adult in her life was telling her that there was no problem here, that she should just keep attending school and all would be well. They only wanted to hear about the ‘good stuff’ and so Jenny stopped telling them about everything else.

Too many adults think that when a child refuses to go to school, the problem is the refusal itself. They think that child must be made to ‘say yes to school’ (this is even the title of a book). But the refusal is not the problem itself. It’s our sign that there is a problem. Stop the refusal and that problem doesn’t go away. We have to look deeper than that.

Illustration by Eliza Fricker Missing The Mark from the upcoming book What Can We Do When School's Not Working? published by Routledge and available for pre-order now.

10/04/2025

10/04/2025

https://apple.news/ARYr4qDpaR422zXRcncQnqg

Head of National Education Union calls for statutory ban on phones in schools and social media ban for under-16s

08/04/2025

https://apple.news/AoUtyCzrGQQqNGLn1ZbIj1Q

Shame and guilt are adversely impacting so many of our young people affected by this situation. Really we all need to be doing more. Smart phone bans for some age ranges may be part of the answer, so is discussing the problem and associatied issues. https://www.behindourscreens.co.uk/

Sitting with the founder of Behind Our Screens as her website starts to get its first messages feels something like sitting in on a Netflix production meeting for a sequel to Adolescence, but again and again and again, relentlessly. There are reports titled “Unsolicited dick pics on my 14th birthd...

18/03/2025

TONIGHT! TUESDAY 18Th March...

Would you like to help Bury get their policy for Preparation for Adulthood for young people with SEND right? Do you have a child/young person who could need Adult Social Care Services as they get older?

Join the online event on Tuesday 18th March, 7.00pm, to share your views and experience to get the policy right.👉https://ow.ly/jjXA50VfrT1

Would you like to help Bury get their policy for Preparation for Adulthood for young people with SEND right? Do you have a child/young person who could need Adult Social Care Services as they get older?

Join the online event on Tuesday 18th March, 7.00pm, to share your views and experience to get the policy right.👉https://ow.ly/jjXA50VfrT1

18/03/2025

'The dangers of mental health promotion in schools'

Definitely worth a read and a think about. There are some important considerations in here...