This year more than ever VICTA have been tackling mental health issues head on and we have done extensive work in the area to not only benefit children and young people but also parents.  One theme throughout all the work we have done is the importance of modelling, whether your child is witnessing your responses to stressful situations, to your ability to have open and frank conversations, having deep consideration for your own emotional well-being as a parent is a good first step to putting you in the best possible position to be strong for your child.

Here is a summary of all the mental health projects we have covered this year to give you an opportunity to revisit the work and also to express interest for any future projects we have for 2022!

We kicked off our mental health themed content during ‘Children’s Mental Health Week’ this is the 2nd year we have highlighted this awareness week and we have a huge archive full of content that explores the topic extensively.  We have the young person’s voice and the parents perspective represented on the website and also articles for a variety of organisations.  To read this collection of blogs please click here!

Due to not being able to meet up face to face, this year VICTA launched the very first ‘VIRTUAL WELL-BEING RETREAT’, this was a massive collaborative project that brought together lots of organisations who have all been working hard to have a really strong mental health themed offer to our families.  The well-being retreat is still live, so if you wish to revisit please click here!

The VICTA Virtual Parents Well-being Retreat was launched with a huge live panel event where a collection of experts come together to answer mental health related questions that were pre-submitted by our attendees, big thank you to Karen Newell from Toy Like Me, Laura Hughes from Moorvision, Claire Windmill from RSBC, Elin Williams from My Blurred World and Lorna Payne from Blatchington Court Trust for joining me on the day- if you would like to watch this live panel event back then please click here!

We have hosted a number of mental health themed parents focused workshops throughout 2021, which on every occasion have been massively over subscribed.  We have collaborated with CMH Workshops, SIBS and UCAN for these sessions and had a number of guest speakers for our follow up discussions.  I would like to thank all of the parents who have joined us for these workshops and made them thought provoking and informative.  We will be continuing to run an online workshop programme next year and will be releasing the details of this early next year and I am looking forward to some very exciting collaborations.

Also a special mention to Melissa Crowland and the Positive Futures Teams, they have worked with VICTA on both the Well-being retreat and the parents workshops and have delivered some excellent work and solid advice to help children and parents alike.

Our full list of mental health related articles on the parents website can be found by clicking here!

Find support for you and your family in the Support section of our website:

Family support for parents with a visually impaired child (victaparents.org.uk)

Please follow this NHS link for a list of charities and organisations that can contact if you or any members of your family are struggling:

Mental health charities and organisations – NHS (www.nhs.uk)