Fresh Start -building mental resilience in Rutland school students

Our project for 2016/17, sponsored by the Rotary Clubs of Uppingham and Rutland, to train teachers to provide mental resilience teaching to Rutland school peoples has been successfully completed.The project was conceived by Healthwatch Rutland and directed by Dr Ann Williams on behalf of both Healthwatch and the two Rotary Clubs.The training was delivered by the national charity Young Minds contracted to the two Rotary Clubs; it consisted of 5 full day sessions for key staff from all Rutland secondary schools with the last session completed in February.

We would like to thank, firstly, Dr Ann Williams for her work in initiating, facilitating and directing the project; without her whole-hearted commitment and immensely hard work it would never have got off the ground.We would also like to thank the Principal of Uppingham Community College who hosted the training and the trainers from Young Minds who provided such lively and thought-provoking sessions, the High Sherriff of Rutland, Sarah Furness for her support throughout, the members of the Rutland Youth Council and lastly, but by no means least, the Rotary District 1070 Foundation Fund for providing £3000 split between the two clubs as 50% of the funding of this training.

We now look forward to the key staff who underwent the training cascading down what they have learnt to other pastoral staff in their schools and thence to the objectives of all the work – the Rutlandschool students.

Where Rutland leads today the rest of the country will follow tomorrow.