Image with text- Connect North Your Pathway to Wellbeing and Libraries NI
Connect North can connect you to beneficial services and supports within your local community to address your practical, social or emotional needs. (You must be over the age of 18 and live within the Northern Health and Social Care Trust area)
Connect North Drop-in Causeway Coast and Glens dates
Online workshop with hints & tips to improve your gut health, which also helps improve immunity, skin, digestion, sleep & mental health – Monday 17th February at 11am or thursday 27th February at 7pm.
From 5th to 16th May 2025, we will be celebrating Talk PANTS, a campaign helping children across Northern Ireland stay safe from sexual abuse.
We have created an easy-to-use guide to help your service engage with Talk PANTS:
Step 1: January & February 2025 Join our Talk PANTS webinar to learn more about the campaign, access our activity sheets and resources.
This will equip you with the knowledge and confidence needed to deliver Talk PANTS. Click here to register your interest.
Step 2: February to April 2025 Deliver Talk PANTS in your setting. We have lots of suggestions in our support pack (attached) on how to get your families and children involved.
Step 3: May 2025 Celebrate Talk PANTS Fortnight!
Celebrate with us during Northern Ireland Talk PANTS fortnight (5th – 16th May 2025) by sharing our Talk PANTS content on your social media and spread awareness of the importance of the Talk PANTS campaign.
Step 4: Don’t forget! Share your Talk PANTS activities with us throughout the year by tagging us on social media and use the hashtag #NITalkPANTS
NHSCT Health and Wellbeing Officers have won Runner up in the 2022 NHSCT Chairman’s awards – Population Health and Wellbeing for their work on the NSPCC PANTS Campaign.
For the past two and a half years, NHSCT Health and Wellbeing Officers have worked with NSPCC and partners to roll out the NSPCC PANTS Campaign across Northern Trust area.
The NSPCC PANTS Campaign aims to empower parents and professionals to have age-appropriate conversations with their children 4-8 years to prevent or stop sexual abuse through training, resources, and activities co-ordinated by NSPCC and Northern H&W Officers. They planned to launch the campaign Spring 2020. Despite the pandemic, redeployment and staff changes over the last two and a half years they have trained 683 staff, given every school and pre-school setting PANTS resources, information and PANTS library books, and reached 7952 children with the PANTS message.
Children transitioning from primary to secondary school have been learning how to support their own well-being through an initiative delivered through a collaboration of local partner agencies, including leading mental health charity, Action Mental Health.
The move to ‘big school’ can often present many challenges for children, and in response, the Larne and Carrickfergus Locality Planning Group (LPG), part of the Children & Young People’s Strategic Partnership (CYPSP) and the Northern Health and Social Care Trust (NHSCT), offered the mental health promotion project to P7 pupils in the Larne and Carrickfergus areas.
The project, ‘Growing a Healthy, Positive Me,’ is based on Action Mental Health’s Healthy Me programme, which promotes well-being across Northern Ireland’s primary schools and raises awareness of mental health issues among children, their teachers, parents and key contacts.
The initiative aims to improve outcomes for children, young people and families in the area, with mental and emotional well-being identified as a priority.
Action Mental Health’s MensSana teams delivered 30 minute, bitesize ‘Healthy Me’ sessions to P7 classes, online, while they were homeschooling. The sessions led children through the principles of the Five Ways to Well-Being, which are key steps designed to promote overall well-being, and reached almost 200 pupils in nine schools.
The sessions were followed up with an arts and crafts project, in which pupils were asked to design a ‘Tree of Strength’. The Tree of Strength helped to reinforce the positive messages of the online sessions and prompted children to reflect on their own, individual strengths. It also helped to illustrate positive strategies children can use to cope with the challenges they may face in future.
The completed pieces of art were then entered into a competition for a chance to win a monetary prize sponsored by the Larne and Carrickfergus LPG which could be used to purchase Health and Well-Being resources for their schools.
The ‘Growing a Healthy Positive Me’ programme was evaluated as making a very positive impact on the children, who rated it as ‘very good’. One pupil said: “I loved taking time to think about all of the things I can do and the people I can talk to, to help me feel positive about myself and reduce my anxiety.’
A teacher also commented: “The webinar was interactive and very well thought out. Children really loved discussing and drawing the Tree of Strength. It is so relevant during these difficult times of lockdown.’
Kate McDermott, Health & Wellbeing Manager, Northern Health & Social Care Trust commented: “This is a very positive and welcoming initiative aimed at children transitioning from primary to secondary school during these challenging times. It reflects the responses from the Northern Area Parents, Children and Young People Survey 2020 which highlighted the need to address emotional health and resilience of children and young people at a local level”.
Karen Hillis, Service Manager with AMH MensSana commented: “The Growing a Healthy, Positive Me’ was a great initiative for Action Mental Health to be a part of, and it was an excellent example of collaborative working between the partner agencies of the Larne and Carrickfergus Locality Planning Group, Action Mental Health as well as all the schools and children involved.”
