Published on: December 7, 2023
Compass’s Mental Health Support Team in Barnsley has developed a new interactive video to ensure its wellbeing messages get to be seen and understood by many more school children.
Kirsty Taylor, healthy peer relationship practitioner at Compass Be Barnsley created the seven minute for Anti-Bullying Week. She has been asked to speak at different schools but could not physically get to them all.
To ensure the schools that needed support got it, she developed the vieo which could be played in assemblies and included her speaking on screen.
Kirsty said: “Part of my role is to support both victims and perpetrators of bullying and provide support and guidance to schools.
“I wanted to engage as many children, young people and professionals as I could during the awareness week – the interactive video assembly that was sent to schools supported this and allowed key messages around bullying /cyberbullying to reach more school settings across Barnsley.”
During the week, Kirsty also created a targeted whole school assembly, as requested by a local school, to support and reiterate some key safety messages following an increase in bullying and anti-social behaviour in the community.
And Kirsty added: “‘’ One of the most important parts of my role is to listen to young people, and give them time, in a safe, non-judgmental environment, to open up and discuss many different topics they often struggling with while navigating life is a really important. ’’
Michelle Eyre, Team Leader at Compass BE, said: “Compass Be works hard to provided consistent, supportive guidance and give children and young people a safe comfortable environment to speak about these topics.
She said: “Kirsty’s creative flare and vision enabled her to create a video that could be shared with all school across Barnsley to present in their assemblies during anti bullying week.
“Kirsty recognised the importance of the event and how the video would provide an opportunity to discuss the importance of speaking out empowering CYP to also be a voice for others.”
And she added that Kirsty was now a “go-to person for many of the schools across Barnsley as they have received her support on many an occasion. The feedback we continue to receive is exceptional and demonstrates how she embeds the values here at Compass Be.”
Barnsley , mental health , MHSTs , Schools