Press Release - Supporting Your Child’s Emotional Resilience During Lockdown
FREE Online Course Offers Parents and Carers a Lifeline During Lockdown
“The mental health and wellbeing of whole societies have been severely impacted by this crisis and are a priority to be addressed urgently” (Michael Ryan, the WHO’s emergencies chief).
In response to seeing the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on families’ mental health, Brightsparks, a York-based social enterprise, has created a FREE online course: ‘Supporting Your Child’s Emotional Resilience During Lockdown’. The course aims to help parents and carers of children aged 4-11 to understand how to best support children to strengthen their emotional resilience, enabling them to navigate successfully through these uncertain times. The course can be accessed here. To date, over 1000 people have registered.
Brightsparks has seen an increase in self-referrals to course waiting lists and understands how many families are struggling with their mental health and emotional resilience due to the coronavirus pandemic. A recent survey of over 1850 parents and carers by Young Minds found that “67% of respondents agreed that they are concerned about the long-term impact of the coronavirus on their child’s mental health. This rose to 77% among parents and carers whose children had required mental health support in the previous three months. 66% of respondents said that the coronavirus had had a negative impact on their own mental health”.
The course has been created and delivered by Brightsparks’ Director of Learning and Development, Katie Simpson and our expert tutor Christine Shipley, who have been leading and facilitating Emotional Resilience and Parenting Support Courses across the Yorkshire region for a number of years. As a mother of two young boys, Katie was keen to find a way to help other families who may be struggling with their mental health during lockdown: “Christine and I have spent a lot of time thinking about how we can best support families during this incredibly difficult time. As a mother of two young boys, I understand the struggles that many parents and carers are facing at the moment. We wanted to share our professional knowledge and experience to help as many families as possible. The online course is a massive change from the way that we usually run our courses, which is in person. I am incredibly proud of the whole Brightsparks team and what we have achieved in such a short space of time. Due to the huge success of the course, we plan to run more online courses in the future”.
Since it’s launch on the 29th April, over 1000 people have registered for the course, and due to its overwhelming popularity, Brightsparks are extending it’s availability until Friday 12th June. There will also be a live Q&A session with the course tutors on the 12th June that all learners will be invited to join.
Feedback for the course so far has been incredibly positive:
“Absolutely excellent; a great mix of theory to help parents understand their child's behaviour and practical ways that they can help build their child's resilience and reduce anxiety”. Anne, Mum of 1 and a Teacher
“The activities were very useful and the downloadable pack enables me to revisit these time and again to refresh my knowledge” Sharon, Mum of 3 and a Retail Assistant
“I would like to say thank you as it has helped me personally as an adult, giving me realisation of my own mental health, I smiled and sobbed during this. It threw lots up for me, Covid has made me stop in my hectic life and reflect on me!” Gill, Mum of 2 and a Teaching Assistant
Andrew Calverly, a retired headteacher from York, speaks highly of the course “The Brightsparks team have put together a great resource that I would recommend to everyone looking after children at home at this time. There is a lot of helpful content with strategies that can be used immediately to support and calm children at this challenging time. The downloadable information booklet, and the fact that it’s all free, are a fantastic bonus!”
The course can be accessed online for free up until Friday 12th June: https://www.brightsparkscic.org.uk/er-covid19