Sheffield students’ bid to improve mental health and wellbeing for those in​​​ school and surrounding community

The team of mental health ambassadors at Wales High School, in Kiveton Park, are encouraging their fellow students to talk about issues they may struggle with by offering their support in a bid to teach them how to look after their own mental health.

The scheme is the brainchild of former Year 13 student, Alicia Higgins who, at the time, wanted to try and raise awareness of mental health issues affecting young people.

And since it started last September, a team of fully-trained ambassadors have been able to offer their support to others within the school with topics such as anxiety, exam stress of low self-esteem.

Now in its second year, a new team of ambassadors are at the helm and are determined to reach more people.

Year 13 student Hannah Oliver, this year’s team leader, said: “I joined last year and I think when they advertised it they expected around 10 to 15 people to sign up but they got around 30 students actually wanting to take part – it became a massive thing, everyone was so willing to get involved.

“We started out attending training sessions both in and out of school, delivering speeches at big events, hosting a market where we had numerous stress-relieving activities and taking on up to three mentees each, from Year 7 to 11 who we met with and talked to, about anything that they wanted to.

“Last year we held a mental health market where we decorated buns and it helped encourage students to openly talk about mental health.

“We’re doing that again this year and we’ve now opened it up to students right through from Year 7 to Sixth Form.”

However, Hannah admits the ambassadors could not do their work without the support of their dedicated teaching staff.

“Of course, the majority of this being run by my two amazing teachers Charlotte Cooper and Laura Finney,” she said.

“The work they do is phenomenal, the unpaid hours they dedicate to improving the level of wellbeing of students is outstanding and they as people are some of the most thoughtful you could meet.

“They drove us to session on suicide training outside of school so we could then offer a session to anyone within school who wanted to attend and learn how to prevent it.

“I feel this scheme has been so successful and helpful that I want to share it with as many people as possible, from lots of other schools, to encourage the implementation of this in more places than just Wales High.”

The team now hope to inspire students from other schools to start similar schemes in the hope of improving the mental health of other young people living in the city.

You can follow the team at Wales High on Twitter or Instagram.