Social, Emotional, Mental Health (SEMH)
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- Social, Emotional, Mental Health (SEMH)
Social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs are a type of special educational needs in which children/young people have difficulties in managing their emotions and behaviour. They often show inappropriate responses and feelings to situations.
Dealing with feelings - BBC Bitesize
Sometimes, we can feel sad or angry, and that's OK. We can feel better by talking to an adult we trust, or doing something we enjoy, like playing with our friends
Why Do We Lose Control of Our Emotions?
Understand how the brains works.
We All Have Mental Health
Anna Freud NCCF
You are not your thoughts
Kids Health
Inside Out: Guessing the feelings.
Understanding feelings - It is helpful to support children and young people to understand emotional wellbeing and feelings. Learning how to deal with feelings is an important skills. The following youtube clip is aimed at younger children and helps them identify and label feelings “characters” associated with a children’s film.
Brain Break - Shape Breathing
Take a break with Emily as she does a kid-friendly activity that teaches how to use shapes to help take deep breaths.
How to relax | 8 relaxation tips for your mental health
Exploring relaxation can help you look after your wellbeing when you're feeling stressed or busy.
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A guide to Emotional Check Ins What are they and how do you use them?
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5 Point Scale Some children may benefit from tools and resources to help them scale and regulate their feelings. The Five Point Scale is a great resource to help children identify the size of the feeling.
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Safe Spaces When we feel overwhelmed we all need a safe place to “retreat” to and have time to regulate ourselves. Often children benefit from an identified “Safe Space”. This is ideally identified with your child- a place they would choose. Children should not be sent there as a sanction and it’s not a reward they have to earn. The space should feel calm and personal to them. They may wish to put cushions or soft toys there.
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Relaxation and Mindfulness We all need time out to calm and “breathe”. Click on the following resources to access further information on relaxation and mindfulness resources.
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CAMHS Mental Health Matters Let's Care Together - Anxiety and COVID Resources
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Breathing techniques One of the main tools for managing stress and anxiety are breathing techniques. There are many different types of breathing exercises that you could do and you can find a simple breathing exercise on the NHS website
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Calm Mindfulness Mindfulness is a technique you can learn which involves making a special effort to notice what’s happening in the present moment (in your mind, body and surroundings) – without judging anything. Calm have produced a webpage with lots of useful free resources such as calming music, movement exercises, soundscapes and sleep meditations. There are resources especially for children too.
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Grounding Techniques When people feel really overwhelmed, at times it can be useful to use what are called Grounding Techniques.
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Feelings and self Regulation Self-Regulation Self-regulation is a skill that children have to develop before they can learn anything. It is a pre-requisite for efficient cognitive development and for good communication and socialization. Self-regulation ability is connected to how we regulate emotion, stress and our physical states.
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Place2Be Improving children's wellbeing.provides mental health counselling support and training to schools to improve the emotional wellbeing of pupils, families, teachers and staff.
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Anger The following link has a social story to support children and young people to think about feeling angry.
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ELSA The following website has a variety of free resources to support children and young people to think about their feelings
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Movement Breaks Children with specific sensory needs or sensitivities benefit from activities which “feed” their preferences. During times of change and uncertainty many children will not be getting the natural sensory input their bodies are used to.
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Movement Breaks Incorporating Sensory Input into Daily Activities: