WORKING with SCHOOLS & COLLEGES – Pastoral Services

PROBLEM – Why are young people so anxious?

Clearly the mental health of young girls is high on the agenda of schools and colleges, and they are having to find innovative ways of addressing this.

In a report by Hannah Richardson, BBC News education reporter, Head Teachers reported being more concerned with pupils’ mental health than any other issue related to well-being, in a survey of 1,180 school leaders.

In addition, even as long-ago January 2017, the BBC announced that young women are the highest risk group in England for mental health problems, according to new data from NHS Digital. This statistic was prior to the Covid crisis and no doubt and from what I am witnessing, these statistics are far worse now.

My mission is to help young girls understand that the images they see on social media are not real and that they should focus on what suits them rather than try and copy others.

Today’s teenagers are bombarded with peer, media and self-imposed pressures. One of the keys to being able to deal with these pressures is by having a “Positive Identity”. It is essential that they have a sense of who they are and what they are passionate about.

Unhappy teenage girl at school

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SOLUTION

Having worked as a professional dancer, model and actress, I have a great understanding of how the images that teenagers see in the media have been manipulated and constructed. One of my roles is to help them understand why it is impossible for them to achieve what they see in day-to-day media images, as they are not real.

By showing the girls some of the projects and images I have worked on, they come to understand just how they are being set up for failure. I teach young girls how to appreciate their own bodies and find what works for them.

How do I gain their trust?

Starting off with exploring the girls’ exterior identity, enables me to gain her trust slowly and when she is ready she opens up about what is going on in her life and my life coaching begins. By sharing my own story, and that of my daughter too, the girls feel more comfortable and not judged about their own difficulties.

How does it work?

I work by incorporating body confidence coaching with life coaching, enabling young girls to develop a strong sense of their identity, inside and out, so that they can go on to achieve at school and in life in general.

My goal is to help the girls to establish a “positive identity”, both inside and out so that they begin to feel happier with themselves. I can help them achieve this by offering a regular weekly coaching session. This session is organized by staff at the school to fit in around with their lessons and curriculum.

How many sessions are needed to see the results?

There isn’t a set number of sessions as each student has a different set of needs. Once I feel that they are in a better place and they are in agreement, we do a Sign Off session and highlight through charts where they were when they started sessions with me and how far they have grown and improved at the end of the sessions. The students then write a short testimonial describing how the sessions have helped them.

I work closely in both my private practice and within schools with The Grace Dear Trust, a mental health charity set up by Grace’s family after her suicide aged just 27 in February 2017. The aim of the charity is to fund support for young people suffering with mental health issues and to save lives. I am so proud to be supporting this charity’s great cause by offering coaching sessions to young girls at risk. You can check the wonderful work they are doing here: thegracedeartrust.co.uk

Costs

To be discussed with the school directly.

Alessandro – father of Aysha, 17:

“Samantha worked with Aysha over a period of 8 months or so. Aysha opened up about issues at school and Samantha calmed her with some great advice. She also helped my daughter a lot with her self image – clothes that suited her shape and image and I noticed Aysha’s posture improving greatly and becoming more confident with herself on many levels.”