Emotional health day

However, emotional health is not about being happy all the time. Good emotional health is an approach, a way of being, a set of skills which we can develop to help us navigate the ups and downs of life. It’s the ability to be aware of, to understand and to manage our emotions. This enables us to build and sustain healthy relationships with those around us and can be a strong protective factor against mental health problems. 

This is why it is so important and why we at Family Links, the Centre for Emotional Health, want to raise awareness of what it is and how everyone can develop it. We have created a model of seven assets which provide us with a framework to help build good emotional health: self-awareness, self-beliefs, self-regulation, social awareness, beliefs about others, relationship skills and self-agency. Each of these assets can be developed (that’s why they are called assets – everyone has them and can improve them).  

Emotional health is at the core of the Nurturing Programme which our training for parents, carers, staff and individuals in communities, workplaces, education, and prisons is based upon.   

One of the co-ordinators of our parenting programme said that “for some of the women the Family Links Nurturing Programme has been absolutely life changing. But for all the women, it has been a very positive experience. We can’t sing the praises of the Nurturing Programme and Family Links highly enough". At an event celebrating the completion of our ten-week Nurturing Programme a father who’d attended said, “it wasn’t life transforming, it was lifesaving”. 

Of course, emotional heath is important every day and not just one single day in February. It is something which is part of our everyday life, something which enables us to celebrate and enjoy the high points and navigate the low points. An approach which also steers us through the day-to-day ordinary bits as well. Good emotional health will act as protection and support if we hit a mental health challenge, either because we know how to navigate it ourselves or because we are self-aware enough and have sufficient self-agency to reach out for help. We are using this Emotional Health Day to call on the government to recognise the vital importance of prioritising emotional health and also to provide greater funding for it. The current mental health crisis in parents, carers, children and young people is just going to get worse unless we step in earlier to help people develop the emotional health to navigate the rough patches we all face.  

Ensuring that the adults in the life of a child are emotionally healthy will help the child to develop good emotional health. Key research from the British Cohort Study found: 

• Emotional health at age 16 was a stronger predictor of mental health and life chances at age 30 than either demographic or socio-economic factors. 

• Emotional health was the most powerful predictor of adult life satisfaction. 

• Children’s emotional health at the age of 10 was strongly correlated with childhood conduct. 

Family Links, the Centre for Emotional Health, has issued a seven-point plan to help people cope with the increasing pressures of everyday life. To find out more visit www.familylinks.org.uk/emotional-health-day  

If you’re looking for a nurturing course that enables parents and carers to consider emotional health, then please call us on 01865 401800 to discuss options and book a place. 

Peter Leonard is chief executive of Family Links, the Centre for Emotional Health. 

https://www.familylinks.org.uk