Change Talks is a multi-award winning, health education service delivered by the Prevention and Engagement Team here at Lancashire and South Cumbria Foundation Trust.
It delivers education to both children and adults, covering topics such as: anxiety, depression, risk taking behaviours, stress and eating disorders. All of the sessions have been coproduced by individuals with lived experience and health professionals.
Change Talks main focus is schools and colleges, which aims to build more resilient young people and improve their health and well-being.
Since the beginning of 2018, Change Talks has offered health education throughout Lancashire and South Cumbria to 11 to 21 year olds. This programme has now reached over 80,000 young people and now has 50 people trained to deliver the programme. This includes school staff, associate psychologists and mental health transformation officers from football teams community trusts.
Change Talks is now becoming the leading trainer for the English Football League Community Trusts in the North West.
Since the beginning of 2021, there has been a growing demand for Change Talks to work with children with special needs and to adapt the content of the educational sessions into an easy read format. This then led to the first pilot programme working with children with special education needs and disabilities (SEND).
The Change Talks programme covers the below topics, each of which is contributed to by individuals with lived experience and health professionals:
- Stress and Coping Strategies
- Healthy relationships and abuse
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Self-harm
- Risk taking behaviours
- Eating disorders/image
- Gambling
- Smoking
- Drug awareness
- Learning disabilities
- Autism
- Nutrition
- Anger
- Minority groups
- Communication and Self-esteem (2 bonus sessions)
