Our youth empowerment squad focus on mental health
On 5 September we held a unique YES meeting for our members. Rather than working on some of our ongoing projects we focussed on youth mental health; celebrating Youth Mental Health Awareness Day, raising awareness and also empowering our members with strategies that could be applied into their daily routine.
Our ice breaker included answering questions relating to emotions, people we find inspiring and our own personal qualities. This was followed by a ‘how much do you know about mental health?’ quiz, which was very insightful for everyone who participated.
After a brief update from our board members and receiving feedback, we heard from our guest speaker. Esta from The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, (RCPCH), presented ‘looking after our own mental health’ to the YES members. The presentation focused on how to manage stress, anxiety and provided strategies to improve everyone’s wellbeing. Everyone enjoyed the practical task of making stress containers, folding notes which had stress triggers written inside and putting them into a jar or mug. We were all able to visually see how easily it is to start feeling overwhelmed, when the container started to actually overflow with folder pieces of paper. After this task we were empowered with strategies that we could use to start emptying our ‘containers’ and Esta provided us all with ideas to stop the container getting so full in the first place, such as asking for support early on.
The Barts Health Youth Empowerment Squad is always looking for ways to expand their network. If you are interested in any of the above and/or having a hands-on approach to making a positive change for young people in hospital, please join our meetings! If you are interested in learning more about the Youth Empowerment Squad you can find out more on our website, Twitter or Instagram.