Is it too late to fix the growing mental health crisis among our children and young people?

£7.99

ISBN 9781785833335

Award-winning author Avril McDonald has a bold goal ... to give ALL children access to tools to help them manage tough emotions.

According to the Mental Health Foundation around one in ten children and young people are affected by mental health issues; including depression, anxiety and conduct disorder. Alarmingly, however, 70% of those children and young people have not had appropriate interventions at a sufficiently early age.

One woman (who knows from personal experience how important it is to learn and develop these essential coping mechanisms) has set the wheels of change in motion. Avril McDonald, award-winning author of the Feel Brave series, first launched Feel Brave to help teachers and parents find ways to help children understand their emotions and how to deal with them. She says, “When my daughter had her first nightmare, managing it came very easily to me by using some of the techniques I had learnt in managing my own anxiety. I realised that I might be able to help other children by creating characters, stories and poems that opened up conversations and delivered simple, powerful strategies to cope.”

In her latest book, The Purrfect Pawse: A little book to help children pause, stretch and be grateful, Avril returns with some of the colourful, lovable characters from the Feel Brave series to help nurture young children’s physical and mental well-being through a combination of activity and poetry.

Together, Catreen and Wolfgang offer both a positive message and an accessible level of activity that teachers can embed as part of their personal, social and health education (PSHE) objectives, and that parents can adopt for use at home with their children at any time (e.g. around the kitchen table, before bedtime).

Avril McDonald has a diploma in education from Wellington College of Education, New Zealand, where she trained as a primary school teacher majoring in music and dance. She has had a varied career in digital entertainment. She launched Feel Brave to help teachers and parents find ways to help children learn to deal with their emotions and to reach their potential.

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