Calm Cats Wellbeing 'Tool Kit' For Children

Aim

To create and produce a postal delivery 'tool kit' of fun, therapeutic activities that nurture, promote and support children’s well being.

Hello, I'm Hannah, founder of Calm Cats, a children's wellbeing service based in Norwich, I am hugely passionate that all children have the opportunity to learn and practise strategies that support their mental health, emotional health and wellbeing from an early age. 

That's why, I am creating the Calm Cats Tool Kit, a postal delivery box of tools and techniques to nurture, promote and support children’s emotional health, mental health and wellbeing. The tool kit includes a set of 56 activity cards and associated resources to engage children in regular wellbeing practises. It literally delivers calm and relaxation, straight to your door!

The brilliant and hugely important thing about all of the activities is that they are easy, accessible, fun and appeal directly to children with the added benefit of providing valuable therapeutic input. 

The therapeutic input includes, but is not limited to, self-regulation through movement, finding focus through mindfulness, experiencing peace and positivity through meditation, feeling calm through deep breathing and learning how to relax through progressive muscle relaxation and guided visualisation.

I want our children to know that there are things they can do to help them feel better, when they are not feeling their best. That there are things they can do to help manage their thoughts, feelings, emotions and behaviours.

Encouraging regular practise and engagement of wellbeing activities in our children will help them develop their own tool box of emotional management techniques. I hope that this will lay the foundations for their continued practise to be developed through the teenage years and into adulthood. It is my absolute passion and aim that these skills should not been seen as special or available only to a privileged few. They are key life skills and need to be seen as as normal and important as learning any new skill such as reading, writing, throwing and riding a bike.

The Calm Cats Toolkit is an excellent resource to be used in schools as well as at home. The activities can be used as a whole lesson, or brain breaks throughout the school day. They are useful tools to help children re-focus when they are struggling with a task and as decompression activities at the end of a busy day.  

I am a registered therapist, coach and qualified early years teacher (QTS) with over 10 years’ experience teaching children and young people in a special needs setting. Since leaving the formal setting of the classroom,  I have used my skills and knowledge to work with children and parents in group and 1:1 settings, as well as going into to schools to deliver workshops to staff and children.

Most importantly I am Mummy to 2 young children whom I am raising with my partner with their wellbeing, happiness and positive sense of self at the heart of everything we do.

I am crowdfunding to fund the design, creation and production of 200 packs of activity cards. The crowd funding will also go towards sourcing and purchasing the resources to be included in the tool kits for both individual use at home and on a larger scale for use in schools and children's organisations. 

I have been fortunate enough to be accepted on to the Natwest Back Her Business, Side Hustle Campaign. They will pledge me £50 when I receive £200 in pledges from 5 supporters. They will pledge me a further £500 when I receive £500 in pledges from a further 30 supporters.

If you believe in this project, or the importance of children's mental health as much as I do, please pledge to ensure this project happens. It is only if I reach my full target of £1250 that the funds will be secured..

As a thank you for pledging, there are some great rewards up for grabs, from social media shout outs with me and Calm Cat, crunchy snowball stress relief toys, packs of activity cards hot off the press, and a limited number of limited edition Calm Cats Tool Kits.

Hannah x

This project successfully funded on 18th December 2019