Year 9 students have taken part in an event called Health Day which incorporated a range of workshops about important issues that can affect young people.
Health Day included workshops about healthy living, drugs, alcohol, sex, relationships and stress. Fylde Health Action Group helped organise the event and kicked off the day with a presentation to all year 9 students, this was followed by multiple workshops throughout the day. Each of the 200 pupils attended four workshops on the issues they felt they would benefit from learning more about.
Around 10 students from Carr Hill are already part of the Fylde Health Action Group. These pupils spoke to younger students about the sort of workshops that were available and got feedback from them about the ones they would find most useful, before the event took place.
The Fylde Heath Action Group students then contacted groups such as the NHS, ACE and AD Action to ask if they would like to run workshops at Carr Hill. The workshops focused on providing students with key information and giving them the resources needed should they struggle with any of the issues in the future.
Sally Temple works for ACE, Achieve, Change and Engagement, an organisation that provides emotional health and well-being support for young people. Sally ran four workshops throughout the day and felt they were very beneficial to students.
Sally said: “It was a pleasure to come to Carr Hill. The students were engaged and interested in the workshops. A lot of young people already have an understanding of the issues that could affect them so this is really about ensuring they know where to turn should they need support or guidance.”
Student Regan attended one of the workshops about drugs and alcohol awareness and found it very insightful. He said: “The workshop was interesting and helpful. There were lots of practical exercises which made the workshop fun and helped us to learn.”
Heather McKendrick, from The Fylde Coast YMCA, led workshops on health living during the event. She said: “A lot of the students know about healthy living but that doesn’t mean that knowledge is always put into practice. Our workshops are about demonstrating the importance of making the right choices and how easy it can be to make small lifestyle changes.”
Many of the Carr Hill students involved with the Fylde Health Action Group were on hand to help out with the workshops. Year 12 student, Felix, was present in a number of workshops throughout the day. Felix said: “I heard about the Fylde Health Action Group from my friends and joined soon after. Anyone can join and there are a wide variety of things you can get involved in. In addition to this health day we are also working on presentations and surveys at the moment. The great thing about the group is that you can bring up your own ideas and suggest ways in which to communicate messages that you feel are important to young people.”
Other students from neighbouring areas have been impressed with the work of the Fylde Health Action Group, so much so that students Hannah and Christian from Lytham came along to the health day event at Carr Hill to see what it was all about.
Hannah said: “We want to set up a similar group in Lytham. We have friends who have been through tough times and haven’t always known who to talk to. We want to set up our own group so that local young people know about the support and services on offer and how to go about contacting the right organisation for them if and when they need to.”
Amanda Bate, NHS Community Engagement Manager for the Fylde and Wyre, enjoyed running workshops and working with the students. She said: “We run groups like this to teach the students but also to learn from them. It is useful for us to know about their concerns so we can continue to offer the services that are most important to them.
“I thought that the year 9 students had a really high level of interest in the workshops and had lots of their own ideas to contribute. I hope they have all expanded their knowledge and learned something new.”
Overseeing the event was Carr Hill’s Personal Development Leader, Mr Beale. He said: “On behalf of all the students and staff at Carr Hill I would like to thank all the organisations that took part in the health day. It was a huge success and helped raise awareness on key topics amongst our students. We will definitely be running more health days in the future as there is such a great benefit to students.”
Other Images
Year 9 Health Day
.jpg)
