6th February, 2025
It’s Children's Mental Health Week and Place2Be’s theme for 2025 is inspiring our young people to, ‘Know Yourself, Grow Yourself!’ Here are our five tips for encouraging our children’s mental health.
1. Mindful activities for quality time together. Create chances for one-to-one conversation. Take a walk and chat about everyday stuff, this can create an open environment where you ask how particular situations made them feel. Low pressure activities such as baking creates a safe space to talk but is also a hobby to get immersed in, taking their mind off any concerns they may have.
2. Celebrate their individual strengths. We all love a bit of praise. Build confidence and passion by supporting talents, this will foster self-esteem while also developing what they’re interested in. Keep in mind here, that your children’s mental health may be affected if they think that they need to shine in every task. Assure them that this is something to be enjoyed, that they’ll grow from learning and trying. Being successful is a process.
3. Encourage emotional awareness. It’s okay to have feelings. Set up safe spaces for children to express their emotions and have an open dialog about their reactions to specific situations. Journaling is a great way for them to explore their own feelings. Creative pursuits such as painting and poetry are also a perfect way for helping children express their emotions in a non-threatening way.
4. Set goals. Setting small, achievable goals can work wonders for a child’s confidence and mental wellbeing. For example, improving school grades can seem like a daunting task, help them break that down into bite-size chunks to achieve this long-term goal. Many looked after children have never done homework before, starting off with 15 minutes per weekday evening to get them into a routine is a small and quick win for improving their relationship with studying. When they’re more confident, gradually increase the time. Don’t forget to celebrate milestones to remind them of the advancement they’ve made.
5. Listen. This is a tip just for you! Active listening is not always the simplest thing to practice when life is hectic. But trying to stay in the moment when a child is talking to you is crucial. If they suspect you’re distracted when they’re attempting to communicate, or you dismiss something as trivial in haste, then they’ll likely not seek to confide in you again. Children and young people are just starting to figure out the world, take their concerns seriously.
Young people’s mental health is a true passion of ours at FosterCare UK. Our approach to fostering will always be a therapeutic one, where the onus is on us, the adults, to adapt our approach towards children based on their needs and not our preconceptions.
We do this by offering bespoke training to our team as well as our foster carers, such as therapeutic parenting courses, PACE and DDP. Of course, all of this supported by our in-house team of therapists, MATTS.
Together we support children’s mental health.
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