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DISCOVER
School-based workshops for 16 to 18 year olds
About DISCOVER
Who we are
The DISCOVER team is a group of clinical psychologists with expertise in the fields of adolescent mental health and service development. We are committed to developing new approaches to improving 16-18s' emotional wellbeing in community settings. We have created a series of innovative school-based workshop programmes for Sixth Form students who experience anxiety, low mood and high stress. In all of our work, DISCOVER aims to build teenagers’ resilience and help them deal better with ongoing academic or personal stresses. Problems tackled include procrastination, sleep difficulties, excess worrying, low self-esteem, relationship difficulties, low motivation and poor time management.
About discover
The team also runs DISCOVER Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health assemblies which can be delivered to large groups of teenagers to build their resilience to stress. Linked to these assembly sessions, we can provide DISCOVER Emotional Wellbeing Booster workshops for smaller groups of students, and accompanying DISCOVER Emotional and Mental Health PSCHE teacher resource packs for Key Stage 5 tutorials.
With Maudsley Charity funding, we have recently adapted DISCOVER to provide accessible mental health support to young Care Leavers. This work is currently being piloted in partnership with local authorities.
We are grateful to Dr June Brown, Reader/Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, Kings College London, who originally developed the Wellbeing workshops for adults (Brown 2000), and gave permission to adapt this innovative service approach for 16-19s. Dr Brown is the Chief Investigator in the BESST trial, which is evaluating the effectiveness of DISCOVER workshops in schools in four English regions.
DISCOVER ‘How to Manage Stress and Worry’ programme
Our ‘How to Manage Stress and Worry’ programme is an award-winning mental health programme for stressed and troubled students. Up to 16 students per school sixth form can attend this four-month programme. The DISCOVER staff team, comprised of specially trained clinical psychologists, work in partnership with teachers in sixth forms across London and the Southeast of England. To date we have supported more than 6000 young people in over 50 schools.
How can we help?
DISCOVER interventions are based on Cognitive Behaviour Therapy principles, and are designed to engage young people to come forward and make sustainable changes to real-life problems in their lives. Our programmes offer up to date scientific and psychological advice to teenagers about the impact of stress and worry on their wellbeing and provide participants with effective new ways to address their difficulties. Individual sessions with participating students are followed by a workshop day, which is run by two DISCOVER psychologists within the school. Students are helped to set a personal life goal, drawing on the DISCOVER techniques. Problems that DISCOVER interventions can address include:
- Excessive worrying and low mood
- Low resilience to stress and pressure, at home or at school
- Loss of motivation and lack of confidence
- Poor sleep and lack of energy
- Difficulties organising workload and revision, and poor work/life balance
