Earlier this year, the Cambridge Youth for Christ team in St Neots had the privilege and joy of being able to deliver an interactive and engaging 5-week programme with 5 students from a local secondary school, based on ‘5 ways to wellbeing’.
These workshops introduced 5 evidence-based ‘ways to wellbeing’ that we can put in place in our daily lives to help manage and improve our wellbeing:
Connect: Build and maintain positive relationships with others.
Be active: Engage in physical activity regularly.
Take notice: Be aware of the world around you and your feelings.
Keep learning: Try something new and learn new skills.
Give: Giving to others is good for your own wellbeing.
We incorporated coping strategies into these sessions for when the students are feeling stressed, anxious and overwhelmed. They also learnt the importance of good sleep, good eating, physical exercise and sharing and managing thoughts and feelings.
We used videos, games, group discussion, 1-1, crafts, quizzes which they all loved and helped to keep them fully engaged. All the students engaged really well throughout the sessions and happily contributed their thoughts and feelings from the start.
They came away at the end with improved self-esteem, confidence, raised aspirations, resilience and self-worth. It was such a joy to see them able to self-reflect and listen to each other.
The best part was enabling them to all set themselves a personal challenge related to the topic we were exploring that week. We were so impressed with how seriously they took on this element and wanted to put into practice all they had learnt.