The ‘FRIENDS for life’ is a school-based mental health programme. From September 2014 we will be running a programme with all our first year students. It will become part of the social and personal health education within the school. This programme will help student to develop effective strategies to deal with worry, stress and change and how to develop resilience skills useful during transitions.
We are running a pilot of the programme with a group of first year students in the expectation that they will evaluate and guide its delivery for next year. Students started the programme on Monday 3rd of March for approximately 10 weeks. As it is new to the school it is being run by an external facilitator called Evelyn Buckley from NEPS and Noreen Ryan, our Guidance Counsellor. This is beneficial for all students, irrespective of their anxiety level. Forty two teachers attended a three day training session to become accredited facilitators in the ‘FRIENDS for Life’ programme.
By Zehra
