 I am in Birmingham at the Mental Health and Schools Knowledge Exchange organised by Leeds Becket University. I am here because I am a coach for the School Mental Health Award, many of you will know that, many of you are my coaches, and today's really all about lots of people sharing their ideas. You can see the room's really filling up, lots of people are already dodging the cameras and moving around now. I think we've got about 150 people coming and the format of this event is really interesting because actually what we do here is we have lots of roundtable discussions and there's a facilitator and a topic that's really about encouraging people to share their ideas and their best practice. So hopefully throughout the day we'll share loads and loads of different ideas and I'll try and encourage people to jump on the camera and join in with the vlog. We'll see how we go. This is my third attempt at filming the intro to this vlog because I just formatted the card on the first two attempts. So that's going well. So this was my first time vlogging. I didn't do so great on capturing the live stuff. This is pretty much the only live footage I got. Enjoy. Good morning colleagues, good to see everyone here today. It's fantastic that actually looking at everybody in the audience, that mental health is being really prioritised in schools and colleges and there's nothing more important than supporting children and the other people's mental health and also the mental health of teachers because we know that when people are mentally healthy, they're right. And I would talk to the child and I'd say even though I'm feeling a little bit of stress today, I'm feeling down, it's just an emotion. It's just a feeling. It will pass. So we no longer have bells except for the start and the end of the day but every change over through the day, whether it's break time, lunch time, lesson change is a piece of music. We believe that mental health is important as physical health so that's something we've set up and it's really embedded in the school. We are in our third year with our wellbeing mentors now. I learnt an important lesson today, turn the microphone on. These schools all won their School Mental Health Awards today and they're wooing. See woo woo, yay! Yeah, so I just realised I got everyone to woo and I didn't have my microphone on so that's going to be rubbish. Tell me what's been the great bit so far today, what's been your favourite thing? My favourite thing is just kind of the buzz and the atmosphere making the times day to put mental health at the top of their agenda. That's pretty cool actually isn't it? For me it's been meeting people that I've coached online face to face and the joy in their eyes at being part of this wider community from within Leeds Becket University and the centre and just celebrating the great practice that's going on out there and everybody's working so hard in this vital area at school. You guys are pros, I love it, thank you. It's now my least favourite part of the day, lunchtime, conference food, not my thing. So this is one of those situations where there's loads of food and then lots and lots of people and I hate it. So yes, I have to be really careful that I do eat at these events because otherwise what happens is that I don't eat because I freak out because of the food and because of the people and all that kind of thing and then it gets into the day I haven't eaten in anorexia. So Rachel very kindly who is organising everything has gone to find me a sandwich and I'll go and eat that on my own because that's just how this works. So they all glimpse into the life of the pookie there. I stand up on stage and I look really professional and confident and the rest of it but present me with lunch and I freak. Do I look at you or do I look at them? No, look at them. Okay, cool. A new venture is called Beyond Chain, Beyond Stigma and it's a grant giving metal organisation. So essentially we know all about lack of funding and lack of access to services and so we're the moment we're fundraising and we're going to start giving grants at the end of this year. And I've used these with a selective medium lady but very, very successfully. A whole discussion about her mental health using these symbols without saying a word. It was fantastic. It's time to mine. And what we do in schools, we go into schools, we talk to young people about if your head feels like this and it's all over the place that you can't concentrate and you can't learn and we use strategies to help them settle back with mine including five finger breathing. We do four, five, six breathing and we do some grounding strategies and what the idea is that while those strategies are happening your mind is settling down and it gives you chance just to settle or let you glitter settle. Once you glitter settle you then can concentrate and you're able to learn better. Okay, so I'm leaving this and all the stuff to eat my sandwich. Rachel got me a sandwich so I'm just going to point somewhere to hide and eat it quietly. Yeah, how to be pooky in three steps. One, don't eat when everyone else does. Two, go find somewhere to hide. Three, look like a freak talking to yourself in your camera as you're walking around the hotel and then eat this. Totally have one of them. It's intrinsic to what we do, what we believe in to ensure our children are developing personally and socially not just economically. We feel that actually the research shows that the children make a decision about their careers at about the age of seven or eight and it's very hard to change their mindset so it's about getting into stereotypes and looking at all of those very early on. I've been really inspired by you today so I'm so glad I came to hear about the award and about what you do. This was the final bit today was are we going to look at the award and actually yes I can see from what you've done and what you've made and actually it's got to go from right there at the top of senior management because that's something where I believe that you can filter all the way down through the schools and make that difference. Now it's the end, it's the end of the day. Room's emptying, everyone's going home. I'm driving home so I've got to be at Gatwick at five o'clock tomorrow morning. So that's a wrap, I hope you enjoyed my first vlog, Pookie's first vlog. Bye.