The Mental Health Foundation, in cooperation with the Public Schools and Catholic Schools, is in the process of bringing a prevention program called ‘Zippy’s Friends’ to the children of St. Maarten.
Zippy’s Friends is a program that promotes the mental health and emotional well being of young children. This program is evidence based and is in use in already over 30 countries across the world. The fundamental concept behind the program is very simple; if we can teach young children how to cope with difficulties, they should be better able to handle problems and crises throughout their lives. It teaches them how to cope with everyday difficulties, to identify and talk about their feelings and to explore ways of dealing with them. Some topics that are part of the program are feelings, communication, bullying, conflict resolution, change and loss. Zippy’s Friends is a program for schools. It usually runs for 24 weeks, with one 45-minute session each week.
Psychologist at the Mental Health Foundation Jolien Louwerse explains she thinks this program will be very helpful for the children in St. Maarten; “Already when I first heard about the program in September 2013 at the Transforming Care Congress here in St. Maarten, I was very enthusiastic about it. The mastering of basic coping skills and social skills can help you throughout life and enlarges your chances of growing into a successful and happy teenager and adult. Unfortunately not every child picks up these skills at home or at school. What I like about the program is that children are encouraged to think about solutions themselves, instead of being told what to do. That is also what makes the program easily adaptable to different environments and cultures.”
Zippy’s Friends is not available to be bought ‘off the shelf’; a license issued by the founders of the program Partnership for Children in England is needed. Training of coordinators and teachers is therefore required.
This week, the first part of the training will take place by a team of 4 to-be-coordinators visiting the country of Trinidad and Tobago, where the School Leadership Center has implemented the program already. The School Leadership Center took on Zippy’s Friends in 2011, and has been delighted with the results, expanding from 13 schools in their first year to running the program in over 60 primary schools this year. The four coordinators from St. Maarten to attend the training are (as seen in the picture from left to right): Jina Mahbubani; guidance counselor at the Prins Willem Alexanderschool, Jolien Louwerse; psychologist at the Mental Health Foundation, Danette Gumbs; information and prevention coordinator at the Mental Health Foundation, and Miranda Veltman, psychologist at the Catholic Schoolboard.
This team will be visiting Trinidad and Tobago for a 3-day training beginning of this week. The training is aimed at getting familiar with the program, and how to train and guide the teachers whom will be using the program. Also visits will be made to several schools which are already using the program, to experience the program in use and to get feedback from these schools.
The second part of the training will take place when the team from the School Leadership Center will be visiting St. Maarten at the end of February, when they will assist with the first trainings of the teachers.
The project to bring Zippy’s Friends to St. Maarten is starting off with a pilot: two schools will start using the program. These two pilot-schools will be the Prins Willem Alexander School and the Sr. Regina Catholic School.
The Cooperating Funds (Samenwerkende Fondsen) has provided funding for the pilot, including the training of the coordinators, teachers, and guiding of the teachers for the first year. Efforts will be made to implement the program in eventually all of the primary schools of St. Maarten.
For more information on this project, please visit www.mhf-sxm.com
