Doing good is good for you and good for your mental health.
Mental health refers to the way we think, feel and act. Everybody has mental health, the same way everybody has physical health, and we need to look after it.
Just like physical health, mental health can be trained and improved through regular use, stretching and exercise. A positive mental health is developed by improving wellbeing and fostering resilience.
Wellbeing
Wellbeing is the state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy.
Five ways to boost your mental wellbeing
Connect with people around you
Be Active
Keep Learning
Give to Other
Be Mindful
2nd St Ives Sea Scout Group provides children with the tools and opportunities to develop all five ways to improve wellbeing
Improving Wellbeing
When you are part of 2nd St Ives, you belong to the largest youth movement in the world, this sense of pride, ownership and belonging is instilled in all our members and helps boost wellbeing by integrating the 5 Ways into every meeting, activity, and event we deliver as a collaborative and inclusive Scouting family.
Resilience
Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.
7 C’s for Fostering Resilience
- Competence: When we notice what young people are doing right and give them opportunities to develop important skills, they feel competent. We undermine competence when we don’t allow young people to recover themselves after a fall.
- Confidence: Young people need confidence to be able to navigate the world, think outside the box, and recover from challenges.
- Connection: Connections with other people, schools, and communities offer young people the security that allows them to stand on their own and develop creative solutions.
- Character: Young people need a clear sense of right and wrong and a commitment to integrity.
- Contribution: Young people who contribute to the well-being of others will receive gratitude rather than condemnation. They will learn that contributing feels good and may therefore more easily turn to others, and do so without shame.
- Coping: Young people who possess a variety of healthy coping strategies will be less likely to turn to dangerous quick fixes when stressed.
- Control: Young people who understand privileges and respect are earned through demonstrated responsibility will learn to make wise choices and feel a sense of control.
Developing Resilience
To ensure our children develop resilience and feel mentally strong, we believe our programme of activities and events through all sections nurtures and develops the tools required for robust mental health and strong resilience.
During the early years, in the Beavers and Cubs, we develop a positive welcoming atmosphere where there is a structure, a routine, and there are rules. This is key at this formative time, especially for children with neurodiverse functions who tend to crave routine and thrive on a set method for doing things.
Scouting becomes more relaxed as children move through the sections and are more able to cope with change and variance. Once in Sea Scouts, we encourage ownership of the routines and rules during activities and events, this allows the Sea Scouts to rely on their learnt expectations from their time with Beavers and Cubs, and from modelled behaviour demonstrated by our Senior Sea Scouts, Young Leaders and Adult Role Models.
Scouting at 2nd St Ives gives you Skills For Life..
- Character Skills: resilience, initiative, independence and tenacity
- Employable Skills: leadership, teamwork and problem solving
- Practical Skills: navigation, cooking and first aid
- Physical Skills: kayaking, rock climbing and hiking
…with Skills to Achieve
Young people live up or down to expectations we set for them. They need adults who believe in them unconditionally and hold them to the high expectations of being compassionate, generous, and creative.
Role Models
We believe good support for our youth members starts with good support and training for our adult role models.
Scouting’s quality depends on its role models, so it’s important we as role models are mentally strong ourselves in the first instance, just like emergency first aid, the first priority is your own safety and well being before you can effectively look after others.
Find out how we support our adults at 2nd St Ives Sea Scout Group
We believe in Every Child at 2nd St Ives
Can you inspire curiosity, encourage confidence, build pride, create resilience, nurture empathy, and develop leadership skills?
You look inspirational
You look enthusiastic
You look like a role model
You look like a leader as 2nd St Ives
What we do to model healthy resilience strategies for our children is more important than anything we say about them.
Join in the fun…
It’s not all about the serious stuff, and adults often forget the importance of being silly and the ability to play.
Adults often;
- ‘feel shy to be silly or speak out or sing a funny song in gibberish
- that’s unsafe territory for them because they haven’t done it in so long.
We think play is good for adults, join 2nd St Ives, find out more and learn to play again.