Thousands of North Yorkshire pupils come together to create positive culture around mental health

Pupils took part in interactive online workshops broadcast live into their classrooms across the county Credit: North Yorkshire County Council

Thousands of students have joined an interactive effort to tackle the stigmas of mental health.

3,800 pupils and more than 200 members of staff from one hundred North Yorkshire primary and secondary schools attended an online event to create a culture of positive mental health and wellbeing in schools.

Organised by the County Council's Healthy Schools programme, the event brought pupils together for an interactive online workshop broadcast live into their classrooms across the county.

Some of the themes included:

  • The importance of being kind

  • Learning more about being pupil wellbeing champions

  • How to be true to you

  • How emotions are generated

Celebrating the event, North Yorkshire's Director of Public Health, Louise Wallace, said: “It is fantastic that so many schools from across our county have signed up to take part in this Healthy Schools online event, which focuses on the important issue of children and young people’s emotional health and wellbeing.

Workshops and speakers were also provided by local organisations that support the event Credit: PA

“Learning how to work together in school and to put strategies in place to help pupils and staff who might be in need of extra support or someone to talk to is essential for a happy and healthy school.”

Closing the event, pupils took part in a live vote on questions around wellbeing and emotional health to help understand their views and plan future actions.

The questions were inspired by responses from the Growing Up in North Yorkshire Survey, which more than 250 schools in the county completed.

Over 16,000 pupils responded to the last survey, giving their opinion on whether they felt supported around issues of bullying and health eating, and whether they were worried about issues including Covid and climate change.

The results of the 'Growing Up in North Yorkshire Survey' are distributed across schools and organisations to inform the practice and development of projects and resources to support children and young people.

Schools will take part in this year’s survey in May.

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