{"id":645775,"date":"2026-10-30T10:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T10:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/645775\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T10:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T10:44:12","slug":"think-and-be-me-secures-200000-for-childrens-mental-health-programme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/645775\/","title":{"rendered":"Think and Be Me secures $200,000 for children\u2019s mental health programme"},"content":{"rendered":"

Think and Be Me has secured about $200,000 from the Government\u2019s contestable Mental Health and Addiction Community Sector Innovation Fund<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The matched funding will allow the programme to visit 80 extra schools next year in Northland, Auckland, Taranaki and Whanganui, doubling its school visits.<\/p>\n

Think and Be Me chief executive Troy Elliott said the investment was an important recognition of the need to support children\u2019s mental wellbeing<\/a> through early intervention and prevention.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t wait until children are struggling with their mental wellbeing before teaching them how their brains work, how to manage big feelings and how to cope with life\u2019s challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Government funding also reinforced the importance of treating mental wellbeing education as an essential part of children\u2019s development, Elliott said.<\/p>\n

\"MentalMental Health Minister Matt Doocey (right) gets a laugh out of the Manaia View School children, supported by the Think and Be Me team (from left) Cat Levine, Titeri Afoa, Harmony Hogarth and Willie Henley. Photo \/ Denise Piper<\/p>\n

\u201cWe teach children maths and reading because we know they\u2019ll need those skills throughout life. <\/p>\n

\u201cUnderstanding their emotions, recognising unhelpful thinking and knowing how to cope when things get tough are just as important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Founded by Cat Levine, Think and Be Me<\/a> uses interactive performances, memorable characters and evidence-informed strategies grounded in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and neuroscience to make the programmes engaging and accessible for primary school children.<\/p>\n

Levine says the programme is about much more than simply teaching children to manage their emotions.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one is happy all the time, and that\u2019s okay. We want children to know that it\u2019s normal to feel worried, angry, sad or frustrated,\u201d Levine says.<\/p>\n

\"ManaiaManaia View School pupils Bhella Varilla (left), Lexus Williams, Dominic Brandt and Te Ana Paul give thumbs up for Cool Cat thinking. Photo \/ Denise Piper<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s important is that they don\u2019t keep their feelings a secret, that they know who to talk to, and that they learn ways to calm themselves and change their Stinking Thinking into Cool Cat Thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The programme teaches children to recognise their feelings, understand the connection between thoughts, emotions and behaviours, and develop practical strategies to respond to everyday challenges.<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s show saw Doocey experience the impact of thinking like a Worry Watchdog and Angry Dragon, before Cool Cat came to calm the scene.<\/p>\n

National Party Whang\u0101rei candidate Lloyd Budd also used \u201cCool Cat thinking\u201d to catch positive thoughts.<\/p>\n

To help reinforce the messages, the pupils were given mood cubes to take home to help them recognise their feelings and share them with others, and each class was given a set of puppets.<\/p>\n

Scroll through this gallery to see more photos:<\/p>\n

Image 1 of 4: Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey (left) and Manaia View School lead teacher Shelley Moselen watch the Think and Be Me show. Photo \/ Denise Piper<\/p>\n

The Mental Health and Addiction Community Sector Innovation Fund<\/a> aims to support organisations already delivering better mental health outcomes.<\/p>\n

Doocey committed $20 million over four years for the fund, with 22 organisations receiving funding in the latest round announced earlier in October.<\/p>\n

Denise Piper is a news reporter<\/a> for the Northern Advocate, focusing on health and business. She has more than 20 years in journalism and is passionate about covering stories that make a difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Think and Be Me has secured about $200,000 from the Government\u2019s contestable Mental Health and Addiction Community Sector…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[19348,36671,95,5195,1061,4749,2082,71,209,134,42928,14909,1885,554,555,6722,111,139,69,10492,1562,6177,9527,4062,50435,5662,316512,49370,1533],"class_list":["post-645775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-19348","tag-always","tag-and","tag-be","tag-children","tag-childrens","tag-for","tag-from","tag-group","tag-health","tag-laughs","tag-me","tag-mental","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-minister","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pink","tag-plenty","tag-primary","tag-programme","tag-school","tag-secures","tag-think","tag-tutu","tag-wearing","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}