Mental Health Awareness Week at Nene Valley Day Nursery

Managers from Nene Valley Day Nursery in Northampton showed their appreciation for their colleagues and parents with a series of initiatives during Mental Health Awareness Week.

At the award-winning setting on Northampton General Hospital Complex, devoted staff teams were gifted with ‘happiness bags’ to boost morale, which contained gifts to promote wellbeing including a candle, sweets, wishing star and plasters, whilst colleagues spoke about the benefits of using positive affirmations and set up a station to help encourage this.

During the week of festivities, parents and colleagues were greeted with a ‘positivi-tea’ board as they entered the nursery in the morning, filled with different flavoured tea bags which they could help themselves to in exchange for adding a positive post-it note, with contributions including ‘you are strong’, ‘you are capable’ and ‘your feelings matter’.

Meanwhile, children took part in a range of activities to mark the occasion, from talking about their feelings with the help of their beloved ‘The Colour Monster’ storybook, to taking part in mindfulness activities including yoga to learn how to better improve emotional regulation.

Nene Valley Day Nursery Deputy Manager, Hayley Baverstock explained;

“Talking about mental health is more important now than ever before and we have had a fantastic week making this known in nursery. Research has shown that people who start their day with positive thoughts are more likely to experience feelings of happiness throughout the day, so we really wanted to promote these positive affirmations in the morning. We have also got a new wellbeing bucket list poster for our staff room, which colleagues can scratch off as they go, with tasks including start a journal, do a good deed, reconnect with nature and make a new friend.”