Support children’s mental health and wellbeing with our downloadable resource

10 October 2024

Lauren Grocott, our early years content and engagement specialist, presents a new downloadable resource. This guide summarises practice recommendations for supporting the mental health and wellbeing of young children, drawn from research evidence.

Lauren Grocott

Content and Engagement Specialist (Early Years)

At carpet time, Duncan and the children talk through their daily routines. As they do, they display the corresponding picture cards in order on the board. Duncan asks, “After we have played outside, what comes next?” The children say, “Story time!”. Duncan nods and adds an image of a book to the board, “Yes, we read a story together. Then what happens after our story?” Some of the children call out, “Home time!”. Duncan places the home time image after the book, “That’s right – when our story is finished, your grown-ups will come and pick you up”.

Educators working in the early years play a vital role in supporting children’s wellbeing ‘in the moment’. We create consistent daily routines and provide nurturing care in a welcoming and safe environment. We focus on engaging and interacting with children, so they can all play and learn together.

What some of us might not realise is the positive contribution many of these activities can make in laying the foundations for children’s future mental health. For example, helping children to understand, express and regulate their emotions helps them to develop the skills to do this independently in the future.

It is important to acknowledge that most of us working in the early years are not trained mental health experts, and many factors can influence children’s mental health and wellbeing. As educators, however, we do play an important role in noticing when a child and their family may benefit from additional support or referrals to external professionals.

Evidence-informed suggestions for practice

We’ve developed a new, downloadable PDF guide to ‘Supporting children’s mental health and wellbeing’. This is based on a systematic review of the research evidence for promoting mental health and wellbeing outcomes for young children.

In practice, some of the activities we might use to support children’s Personal, Social and Emotional Development, or their Self-Regulation and Executive FunctionSelf-regulation and executive function include a range of skills and abilities that give children greater awareness of and control over their emotions, thoughts and actions., for example, can also promote positive mental health and wellbeing outcomes.

Our new resource explains that it is important to ‘develop a secure and supportive climate’. In the example above, Duncan shows one possible way of doing this, by making the children’s daily routine as predictable and consistent as possible. Evidence suggests that focusing on positive relationships and interactions can positively impact children’s mental health and wellbeing outcomes, including social skills and attachments.

To learn more, download our guide to ‘Supporting children’s mental health and wellbeing’ now.

Summary of practice recommendations for supporting the mental health and wellbeing, drawn from research evidence.:

Supporting children's mental health and wellbeing in the early years