SIII Think About the Blues

On August 24th, Senior III pupils attended an introductory session for the Blues Programme run by Action for Children, a charity which aims to protect and support children and young people by providing practical and emotional care and support. They also work to make sure children’s voices are heard, not least by campaigning to bring lasting improvements to their lives. 

The charity has found that 1 in 10 children feel “blue” and so they have devised a six week programme to help build emotional resilience and reduce low mood and anxious thoughts. Crucially, the programme is designed to get young people to open up and talk. 

Cath and Amy from Action for Children explained that they will provide assistance to those in the year group who might: 

1. Sometimes feel down
2. Want to think more positively
3. Feel stressed about schools/exams
4. Find it hard talking about how they feel

In order to identify those who might benefit most from the Blues Programme, pupils were invited to take part in voluntary questionnaire of 20 questions. They were asked to rate their answers to questions such as “I feel lonely”, “I think my life is a failure” and “I lack motivation to do things” by frequency: “rarely or none of the time”, “some or a little of the time”, "occasionally or a moderate amount of time” or “most or all of the time”. After completion, Cath and Amy took away pupils’ responses to analyse the results. 

Depending on the answers they gave confidentially, some pupils will be invited to attend a range of sessions to tackle some of the feelings they indicated that they are experiencing. No school staff or the pupils themselves are aware of the questionnaire responses. Pupils are free to choose whether to attend the sessions in which they are invited to participate. 

In 2021, pupils found this support remarkably useful, and we hope that this year’s Senior III will also benefit from taking part in the Blues Programme.