Richard Luscombe Argyle Community Trust is delighted to be awarded grant funding to work with children and young people whose mental health has been most disproportionately affected by COVID-19 in Cornwall.
The funding will facilitate a project to support the mental wellbeing of young people and children aged 10 to 16 by enabling a Trust Mental Wellbeing practitioner to work with schools in Cornwall. This practitioner will support those most vulnerable and at-risk who were already struggling with their mental health and wellbeing before the COVID-19 lockdown and require extra help to deal with the stress and anxiety.
The practitioner will support pupils by offering a range of interventions, helping raise awareness of mental health and wellbeing and educating parents, students, and teachers. They will work alongside student support services and pastoral care within the school with those most in need being offered low intensity cognitive behavioural therapy.
Support will be provided during and outside of school hours. The Trust will use its extensive coaching and sports experience to encourage and support children to be more active by providing ideas on how to keep fit, and advice on healthy eating.
The Government Contain Outbreak Management Fund (COMF), provided by Cornwall Council with support from Children and Family services and Cornwall Voluntary Sector Forum, provides funding to local authorities in England to help reduce the impact of coronavirus and support local public health.
Argyle Community Trust CEO, Mark Lovell, adds, “We are immensely proud of our work through the pandemic, as highlighted in our COVID Impact report. We worked with people of all ages to positively impact their mental health. Initiatives included online mental health team talks, to the hugely successful ‘Tackling Loneliness Together’ project which saw staff engage with the most vulnerable members of the communities we serve.
We know that poor mental health and wellbeing are issues affecting a growing number of people of all ages in Cornwall. We identified the need for ongoing support for mental health following the pandemic, so we are delighted to be able to offer this project for the young people and families of Cornwall.
We seek to make a long-term difference by providing early intervention to support children to better understand their mental health and wellbeing and better deal with periods of stress, anxiety and setbacks to improve resilience.”
