Introduction to the Wellbeing Passport: Promoting Mental Health

A child who doesn't use words still tells you a lot: what they love, what they want, what frightens them. Reading it is the hard part, especially when a grimace can look like a smile, or a child goes along with things because that feels safer.

The Wellbeing Passport gives you a structured way to find out. Over a few weeks of watching and playing, you record how a child shows enjoyment and makes choices, their favourite sounds, textures and sights, and the smells, touches and noises they can't bear. Behind it sits the thinking on attachment, co-regulation and why play and joy matter so much for mental health. Short films of intensive interaction show how little you need to do to connect.

The passport was developed over 15 years by an occupational therapist who runs a children's therapy service, and you get a copy to use.