Health and Wellbeing
Meeting the Mental Health needs of: Children with Chronic Medical Conditions
Keep a child with a long-term illness connected to their class and friends, and protect their mental health through hospital stays and time off.
- 26 minutes
- 6 modules
- 0.5 CPD hours
- Certificate
Members
14 days free, then £70 a year or £7 a month.
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What you'll learn
- Understand why long-term illness raises the risk of low mood, self-harm and withdrawal
- Plan transitions in and out of hospital so the child stays connected
- Make reasonable adjustments, including to how the behaviour policy applies
- Help classmates keep an absent friend in mind, with ideas like Panda in My Seat
- Support parents and siblings, and avoid letters that feel cold or generic
About this course
Children with a condition like cystic fibrosis or cancer are two to three times more likely than their peers to have mental health problems. Missed days, pain, lost friendships and a school that forgets about them can all add to it.
You'll come away with 10 things school can do, and most cost very little. Keep them in lessons over Teams while they're in hospital. Make sure supply staff know what they need to. Adjust how the behaviour policy applies when anger is really anxiety. One primary school sits a toy panda with a backpack in the empty chair, and classmates fill it with notes and work to send home.
Families feel it too. There's advice on siblings who come in tired, on replacing the standard attendance letter with something more personal, and on caring for staff when the news is bad.
- For governors and mental health leads. Primary and secondary.
6 modules
Open in order
- 6 min
Introduction
- 4 min
Mental health challenges
- 9 min
Meeting the needs of the children
- 6 min
Meeting the needs of the families
- 3 min
Staff wellbeing
- 2 min
Closing thoughts