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What other health and wellbeing support is available? 🧠

Digital wellbeing

Digital wellbeing is a way of describing the effect that using digital devices or being in online spaces can have on our emotions and our mental and physical health and wellbeing. Any negative online experiences can impact our digital wellbeing. Find out more about how you can positively support your child’s digital wellbeing.

Digital resilience

Digital resilience describes a set of skills that allow people to recognise and manage risks that they may encounter when they socialise, explore or work online. Digital resilience also helps us to recover emotionally when things go wrong online, or when we encounter a negative online experience, and is thus considered an important part of online safety.

Internet matters have produced a range of age-appropriate toolkits for parents to help you support your child to develop skills around digital resilience.

🏫 Schools

Schools play a key role in helping to ensure that children are happy and healthy as they grow up. It is likely that your child’s school will already be providing children with lessons about online safety as part of Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education. If you want to know more about the content of these lessons, or if your school has any additional resources that they can provide you on this topic, then you should be able to speak to your child’s teacher.

Gloucestershire Healthy Living and Learning (GHLL) work with schools and colleges in the county to run specific programmes, and provide resources, to help children lead healthy happy lives.

The school nursing service are another fantastic resource supporting children’s health and wellbeing at school. School nurses are specially trained to support children across a wide range of issues, including emotional and mental health, relationships, sexual health, healthy lifestyle advice and family worries. Most schools offer drop-in sessions with a school nurse, and children and young people aged 11-19 can also access Chathealth, an online platform providing support and advice from the school nursing team on a wide range of issues, including:

  • Relationships
  • Bullying
  • Lifestyle
  • Anxiety
  • Drugs/smoking/alcohol
  • Stress
  • Body worries
  • Self-harm
  • Sexual health

😴 Sleep

Having difficulties with sleep can be common for children at different stages of their development. Sleep issues can be made worse by using screens or by feeling anxious about things that might be happening online. If your child is having problems with their sleep, there are a number of things you can try:

  • Establish an evening routine for your child and try to stick to it each night. This will make it easier for your child to wind down and fall asleep at bedtime.
  • Sleep hygiene is important to developing good sleeping habits. Try not to use screens before bedtime and keep your child's room cool, calm and uncluttered. If your child does need to use a screen before bed, changing the light from blue to white can help reduce the impact it will have on your child's sleep.
  • It may be helpful for you and child to keep a sleep diary to record what is happening with their sleep and any feelings associated with night time waking. This can help identify if feeling anxious or waking to check digital devices is contributing to your child's sleep problems. 

You would like more information or support about sleep then The Sleep Charity and the Teen Sleep Hub are fantastic resources.

Accessing local support

If your child is struggling with their mental health or wellbeing, there is a wide range of support that you can access:

  • The ‘Be Well’ Gloucestershire website provides a list of local services which provide mental health and wellbeing support to children, young people, and families across the county.
  • On your mind Gloucestershire is a mental health support finder for young people up to the age of 25 years old. The website also provides general advice about mental health and self-care.
  • Tic+ is a Gloucestershire-based charity which provides confidential counselling, support and care for young people and their families for children and young people aged 9-25 years old. It aims to support young people cope with issues such as depression, anxiety, bereavement, bullying, anger, relationship problems, low self-esteem and self-harm. TIC+ also run free parent and carer support groups.
  • Young Gloucestershire is a Gloucestershire-based charity which provides support to young people experiencing a wide range of difficulties including disruptions to home life, caring for a family member, coping with a mental health issue or substance abuse.