The ChalleNge
Our Approach
Studies revealed that well-conducted mindfulness interventions can improve the mental, emotional, social and physical health and well-being of CYP.
Mednet have co-created a mindfulness programme ‘We are mindful’, encompassing the creative drama-based mindfulness workshops, supported digitally by a web-based solution for pupils that can be accessed via desktops, laptops and mobile devices, comprising of a friendly, dynamic and interactive experience, to promote positive mental health and build resilience in CYP. The digital toolkit equips the school staff to identify emotional disorders in pupils using evidence-based screening tools. The digital solution allows interaction before and after the workshop, including consolidation of interactive mindfulness education, evidence-based rating scales and workshop evaluation. Our concept was originally co-designed in workshops and focus-groups with CYP, school-staff and registered mental-health-nurse. A qualitative-survey was also conducted in various schools. Feedback received was extremely positive, indicating a strong evidence of demand and potential. A video demonstration of our digital tool can be seen below.
This programme has been recently examined in pilots with Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 pupils in diverse primary schools, based in Leeds, Sunderland and London.
An evaluation with thematic analysis of the pilots clearly demonstrated positive impact of our mindfulness-programme, indicating an increase in level of mindfulness and distinctly identified the emotional-and-behavioural problems in pupils, grouped into: - emotional-difficulties, conduct-problems, hyperactivity, peer-relationship problems and prosocial-behaviour.
We would like to enhance the existing digital solution and develop a full-fledged mindfulness service-model involving the school-staff, parents and GPs, as shown in the figure below. Our concept fills the current gap and is in alignment with the existing care-pathways.
If you would like to find more information about this programme, please feel free to email your query at info@mednet.co.uk .
“I believe that the workshop and the digital support were extremely beneficial for both the children and the teachers, despite the short time period of the course. As a teacher, I found the project extremely interesting, both during the actual workshop and from analysing the data. I will definitely be exploring these sensory techniques with other children I teach and encouraging the children involved in the workshop to use these techniques when necessary.”
“The workshop day itself was delivered with brilliant energy, leading to very high levels of engagement. Some of the techniques and sensory regulation methods explored were potentially very effective; since the workshop the children have been encouraged to use these techniques to be more mindful of their emotions The clear data and analysis proved to be very interesting, drawing attention to potential points of concern with children where issues are not so obviously apparent. The data will be very useful to fuel intervention work which could be very beneficial to the developing mind of the individual.”
