Harry Clarke visits Cliff Lane Primary for Suffolk Mind Workshop

To mark Children’s Mental Health Week, Town defender Harry Clarke visited Cliff Lane Primary School in Ipswich on Tuesday afternoon to take part in an EARLY Minds workshop, run by Suffolk Mind.

EARLY Minds, which stands for Emotional Awareness and Resilience Learnt Young, is a mental health programme designed to enable children and adults to learn to talk about and take care of their mental health and to understand how they can help those around them.

“We had a great afternoon working with children from Cliff Lane Primary School,” said Katie Hollis of Suffolk Mind, who led the session alongside Jo Flack.

“We discussed the Mental Health Continuum and practical ways to calm strong emotions. Children learned how to ‘dragon breathe’ to calm themselves down. This life skill is such a handy tool when looking after your wellbeing.

“Thank you to Ipswich Town for all the important work they do and for inviting us to join them today. We hope to continue teaching more children across Suffolk to look after their wellbeing.”

Harry joined in with exercises throughout the workshop, before going on to answer a range of questions from the children on his own mental health, his life in football, and how he deals with stress.

“It was great to visit Cliff Lane Primary School today to speak about and answer some questions on a subject as important as mental health,” Harry said, speaking at the event.

“It is so important to get young people talking about mental health, to break down any stigma around the subject and ensure that children feel comfortable talking about their mental state to their friends, teachers and parents.

“I really enjoyed the event, and it was great to see so many Town supporters in the audience!”

To find out more about Children’s Mental Health Week, you can visit their website here, and more information about Suffolk Mind’s work with the EARLY Minds initiative can be found here.