Through our Healthy Ireland programme we work with local schools to provide workshops for parents and children - designed to support them to learn about nutrition, cooking and eating healthy food, and to encourage physical exercise.
Wellbeing Workshops in schools
We ran a series of Wellbeing Workshops in local DEIS schools during October 2021.
The children who took part really enjoyed the fun activities around mindfulness, gratitude and positive intentions, smoothies and healthy treats, and putting their positive affirmations on the Gratitude Tree.
Check out our video of our health and wellbeing workshops in local schools!
Healthy Cooking and Yoga videos for families
In response to COVID-19 restrictions, in 2020 we created a series of fun videos for local schoolchildren to help them learn to cook nutritious food at home with their parents, and to teach them the basics of yoga and mindfulness - available online for everybody HERE.
The videos are designed to be enjoyable and engaging and to support not only the children’s physical health, but also their mental health and well-being in these challenging times through learning relaxation and mindfulness techniques. Local schools involved in the programme link in with parents to share the videos and ask parents to work through the classes with their children.
Pizza and Winders!
There are six fun healthy eating videos where parents and children can learn together how to make healthy versions of homemade pizza, natural fruit winders, banana bread, granola, smoothies and power balls - followed by a Zoom session where parents and kids can chat about how they got on with tutor Aisling Maher of Cooking Up Change and ask any questions they may have.
Yoga and Mindfulness - be a giraffe!
The Yoga and Mindfulness classes feature four engaging videos for children in the Junior Infants to Second Class age group and four for children in the Third to Sixth Class age group, delivered by professional play therapist and children’s yoga teacher Yvonne Lucas - with children adopting yoga poses by being like an elephant or a giraffe. There are also beginner yoga videos for young people in the secondary school age groups.
Schools involved in the programme include St. Kilian’s Community School and St. Fergal’s, Newtown, Ravenswell, St. Peter’s and St. Kieran’s primary schools, but we're making the videos available to all local schools. The initiative is supported by Healthy Ireland, Co. Wicklow Children & Young People’s Services Committee and our Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme.
Paddy Kinsella, Home School Community Liaison at St. Peter’s Primary School, says :
“The yoga and mindfulness videos are a really helpful resource at this time when children are more anxious about life, and Aisling’s nutritional videos are informative, easy to follow and just as much fun as the face-to-face classes were last year”.
Our collaborative approach
Vital to the success of the venture is the integrated approach of all the partners involved – for example, the Partnership’s Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme (SICAP) plays a key role in the organisation of activities, supporting participation and linking with other services to meet health and well-being needs.
Contact Jennifer Jones on 01 286 8266 to find out more about this initiative.
