{"id":405083,"date":"2026-01-10T23:34:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T23:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/405083\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T23:34:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T23:34:06","slug":"mental-health-issues-in-wales-seven-year-olds-survey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/405083\/","title":{"rendered":"Mental health issues in Wales&#8217; seven-year-olds &#8211; survey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tom Lewis is wellbeing coordinator at Cogan Primary School who helped identify areas for improvement after the school got its SHRN survey results.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said: &#8220;There were relationships with friends that children are struggling with. This is in Year 6 \u2013 the data was slightly lower than Year 4 and 5.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;So it was basically how children engage with their peers and friends and the other area was their appearance and how they see themselves, so that&#8217;s self-confidence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Flourish project focuses on teamwork, self-esteem and building confidence and, for Lola, Skylar and Eliza, the results were overwhelmingly positive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sorraya said Eliza learned to speak up a bit and be more assertive and it also calmed worries about keeping a small circle of friends so she could relax into being part of a wider circle, which has helped with her transition to secondary school.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lucy was shocked when, after the course, Lola told her she wanted to join a football team, despite not knowing anyone who played.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;She&#8217;s still there now and she made friends who were going up to high school. That is massive for her to step into something. She&#8217;s not that sporty either so it was putting herself out there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Skylar found having a different environment to open up in made it easier for her to realise it was OK to get things wrong and to ask for help.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tom said class teachers noticed children who took part in the sessions had a more creative perspective and approach to solving problems, helping the wider group in the class, as well as boosting their academic performance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The programme is now on its fifth intake and Tom thinks many factors, including Covid and the cost of living, have played a part in the survey&#8217;s results.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But, he added: &#8220;Society has changed in many ways. It&#8217;s down to schools to adapt to those changes and how we engage with children.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Lewis is wellbeing coordinator at Cogan Primary School who helped identify areas for improvement after the school&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[64,63,137,514,515],"class_list":{"0":"post-405083","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}