Back in April our small charity was delighted to take part in our first ever BBC Radio 4 Appeal, fundraising for our work in schools building Feelings Groups. We are delighted to announce that we have so far raised £22,480.89.
We’ve already been hard at work putting the funds to good use, holding two training sessions that welcomed interested schools from different parts of the country.
A huge thank you to everyone who has donated, been in touch with us about bringing Feelings Groups to their schools, and to Marie Grant, the creator of Feelings Groups and presenter of our appeal. We could not have achieved this without any of you.
Want to help us reach even more children? Though our appeal is no longer live, you can still help.
Feelings Groups began as a bereavement group in the Spring Term of 2018 in a South Yorkshire school, where Marie Grant, a Year 6 teacher realized that they had a higher than usual number of bereaved children. The bereavement groups developed into Feelings Groups for children enduring any kind of trauma – bereavements, abuse, parental imprisonment or a breakup of the family – but who did not have the language or safe space to talk about it.
Marie wanted to create a place where children could express themselves in a safe environment. Using pictures from the Books Beyond Words series, which has no words, she brought children together for peer group support to read together. This allowed the children to talk about the characters and what they might be feeling in their own words, using their own creativity, and lived experience to describe what they were seeing.
Over time, the children began to relate the stories they were reading to their own lives. They developed the emotional vocabulary to enable them to express how they feel, as well as to show empathy to other children. Not only did the children learn how to express themselves, but their school attendance and scholastic achievements improved too. Following the introduction of Feelings Groups, the school’s attainment in SATs went from 17% of children achieving expected grades to 84%.
Inspired by Marie’s work and based on her Feelings Group model, some SEN schools in Gloucestershire are beginning to use our pictures to support children and young people with learning disabilities to explore and come to terms with situations and emotions they find frightening or difficult to understand. Early outcomes have been very positive with pupils demonstrating increasing ability to recognise and describe their emotions and experiences.
Want to help us tackle the children’s mental health crisis through our work in schools? Donate to our life-changing work, find out more about Feelings Groups, or get in touch with us about how to start one in your school.