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“Every day, I never wanted to leave my mum or my dad. I always used to cry.”

19th November 2024

Aimee used to be gripped by an anxiety that filled her with fear at the thought going to school. Her parents considered it a miracle if she came in for a full week and, heartbreakingly, they felt like they couldn’t even go on holiday together because of Aimee’s anxieties.

Then Aimee met her TLG Early Intervention coach, Ntombi, and things started to change. Dramatically.

Emotional support is vital. At national christian children’s charity Transforming Lives for Good (TLG), we are passionate about emotional health and promoting a trauma-informed approach in all that we do. As we strive towards a future where no child is without hope, we want to equip churches up and down the country to know how to spot the signs of emotional distress and respond to them effectively.

Whether you are a youth worker, a teacher, or a parent, we have all seen the impact that the turbulent past 5 years have had on the emotional and mental health of the children in our lives. Young people are struggling, and we need to act. We aren’t all called to be experts, but it’s imperative now more than ever that we have the basic knowledge and skills to safely explore emotional health together. We want to bring support to children like Aimee who need it most.

TLG has over 25 years’ experience equipping churches to understand and walk alongside children and families who are struggling with their emotional and mental wellbeing. We have taken this knowledge and turned it into our FREE comprehensive ‘The Emotional Rollercoaster’ resource to equip your church to support children and young people in your community during this difficult season.

This free training is for church staff members, volunteers, and anyone who works one-on-one or with groups of children who have emotional or relational challenges. This training provides:

• A biblical perspective on being therapeutic.
• Three-step guide to responding in the moment to signs of emotional distress.
• Tools you can use to continue journeying alongside someone who is struggling.

Connor McIlwaine is one of thousands of people in the UK putting ‘The Emotional Rollercoaster’ training into practice. Here’s what he had to say!

Connor, why did you to take the time to train yourself in supporting young people’s emotional wellbeing?

As an Additional Support Needs (ASN) teacher, my primary role during lockdown was to provide emotional support to young people and their families. However, I often felt ill-equipped to do this as emotional wellbeing was never part of my teacher-training. - so I jumped at the chance.

How did you find the training?

I found it so engaging. The theory really helped to highlight the real emotional challenges young people face and the practical elements showed how these things would work in practice. I loved the use of biblical wellbeing principles.

How have you found putting the training into practice?

The training and resources were so easy to pick up and run with. As a teacher with so many demands, it’s great to have material of this nature and it’s been amazing to see the engagement of pupils who are so regularly disengaged from mainstream classes.

All our training is absolutely free! Book a place today: Visit www.tlg.org.uk/erc to find out more.

Book on a training webinar now (via eventbrite)

 

This blog post was originally published online by Premier Christianity magazine. Read the original post here.