Bounce Forward resilience trials are a hit with teachers and pupils!

Our Children & Young People (CYP) team has received wonderful feedback for the support it has given to children in Blackburn and Preston, as part of Lancashire Mind’s Bounce Forward resilience programme.

Bounce Forward is a preventative project that helps children and young people to build their resilience. It focuses on enabling them to know and understand their themselves, and how to use practical positive coping strategies to help them through tough times. The sessions have been designed - with children - to be practical and interactive, and are fully curriculum linked. 

The team have worked with a number of schools and students throughout lockdowns and school closures. Sharon, one of the project co-ordinators in our CYP team, developed some Bounce Forward plans to pilot with children in Key Stage 1 and Early Years. 

She carried out group work with some Year 1 children who - due to setbacks caused by start or return to school following lockdown – were left feeling displaced because they had no classroom and no continued teacher (the head teacher taught them during this time).

Sharon explains: “So, on top of all the disruption of Coronavirus, the children had this to cope with not feeling like they belonged anywhere and a small group were really struggling and so I worked with them.”

Sharon has only been able to deliver further support of this nature in Easter this year due to the impacts of the pandemic. However, her efforts haven’t stopped there. She has also trialled more group work with Year 2’s at a school in Preston with some Year 2's – one group struggling with feelings and emotions and the other group needing support with developing their confidence and self-esteem.  

In Blackburn too, Sharon has been asked to return to a school to carry out more one-to-one, bespoke sessions with children who are being looked after.

The feedback from the schools – pupils and teachers alike - has been extremely positive:

Feedback from Pupils 

"I liked that we got to play with bubbles and popped our bad feelings out and that made me happy". 

"Sharon was kind and she helped take my bad feelings away".

Feedback from Teachers

Early years teacher: " Bounce forward gave the quieter children the chance to have a longer small group session without being dominated by the more confident members and they have gained confidence in class as a result."

Year 1 teacher: "The children are now much more confident and have maintained relationships they developed in the sessions. Some of these children have in school during the January lockdown and have shown more resilience than we would have expected expected." 

Year 2 teacher: "It was a very timely intervention, given the year that the children had had and that they could talk about feelings and emotions in a very uncertain time".  

To find out more about our Bounce Forward programme and to book for Autumn Term 2021, please contact [email protected]