Three pilots of a school’s based resilience programme have proved highly successful says the head of research and practice at the charity behind it. And one winning ingredient, adds Brathay Trust’s Dr Lucy Maynard, has been the volunteered support from two expert potters.
Thirty-nine pupils from Dallam School, Kirkby Kendal School and Wigan primary school took part in the eight week programme. They explored eight themes including getting to know themselves, one another and their community and they were asked to try something new, a key part of resilience building.
Dr Maynard said: “This Autumn Martin and Siobhan Miles-Moore from Lupton, named us as their charity of the year and immediately offered their time and skills and help with fundraising events next year.
“We are delighted that they quickly understood our 3.7 Resilience Programme, made possible by the financial legacy of Matt Campbell, a Cumbrian chef who died suddenly during this year’s London Marathon.
“With Martin and Siobhan’s involvement we were able to offer young people an opportunity to work with clay and pilot how that would help with essential skills for their personal resilience tool-kit.”
As Siobhan Miles-Moore explained: “Clay is a pliable, beautiful material, which responds instantly to pressure. Focussing on this can take you away from everyday stresses. Experimentation and playfulness pay huge dividends when working with clay and you learn about its limits, which are sometimes only in the mind of the maker. The very act of creating a three dimensional object is affirming. You can see and feel the impact of your own activity on something outside of yourself.
“We have now run two pilot sessions with 25 young people and we’ve been completely overwhelmed by their response. They have shown incredible imagination and creativity. We have watched those struggling to engage with mainstream education create something amazing, from jewellery and dioramas to coasters, paint pots, candle holders and much more. One person, who struggles to speak or to engage with others, was able to chat about the texture of ferns on clay. It was great to see a young man, who cannot sit still for 10 minutes, spend two hours riveted by clay. We also heard a girl crippled by anxiety talk about how liberating clay has felt and we watched boys who fight in class create detailed, clever, painstaking work, inspired by the texture of stones and water.
“We look forward to building on these pilot sessions as the programme rolls out to other schools. We are also very grateful to Stoke-based, Potclays Ltd who donated clay” added Siobhan.
The 3.7 eight week programme was made up of weekly sessions in school and a residential at Brathay’s Ambleside base. Brathay plan to deliver a total of 12 a year and schools have already been in touch.
Brathay Trust’s Dr Lucy Maynard points to a number of winning ingredients from the feedback from the pilot sessions. She said: “Pupils really benefited from being the given time to learn about themselves and being supported to develop a tool-kit of strategies to deal with their particular issues. For some it was about managing anxiety, for others it was about over coming negative influences. We also asked them to try something new, a key part of resilience building, and to look to their community for positive experiences.”
For more information about the 3.7 Resilience Programme please visit Brathay’s website.
