This pack explores what healthy relationships with ourselves and our peers are, how we can build these relationships and how they can affect our mental health.
Healthy relationships are built through kindness, care, trust, honesty and respect. Connecting with ourselves and others in healthy and meaningful ways can help us support our own mental health and well-being and that of others.
It's important to support young people in recognising how their relationships with themselves and their peers make them feel, understanding how they can build healthy relationships, and how to get support if their relationships are affecting their mental health and well-being.
Young Leader - Leaders Unlocked“Learning to have a healthy relationship with yourself also involves learning to be ok with failures. We should embrace our failures and use them as lessons learned to aid our growth.”
School Staff - OPEN survey“It’s important in a relationship to feel loved, supported and included. There should be healthy boundaries, and you should feel safe. A healthy relationship should be reciprocal and equal.”
The Mental Health Foundation’s Peer Education Project is a secondary school-based project that gives older pupils the tools to deliver mental health lessons to younger pupils.
The project has worked with pupils and staff from participating secondary schools to create the Healthy Relationships: with ourselves and our school pack, which is available to all schools across the UK.
The pack provides the materials and resources needed to support pupils to understand the importance of healthy relationships with themselves and their peers and how to build them. It is designed to be used in secondary schools, but also has lots of useful information for primary schools too.
The pack includes:
- An introduction to the Healthy Relationships Schools Campaign.
- A lesson plan with PowerPoint slides and a script, as well as worksheets.
- An assembly plan with PowerPoint slides and script to support the development of a ‘whole-school’ approach to healthy relationships and mental health.
- ‘Top tips’ postcards for pupils on how to have healthy relationships with themselves and their peers.
- Posters to display in schools, to share top tips with pupils.
- Helpful guides for school staff and parents/caregivers on how to support pupils/children and young people in building healthy relationships with themselves and their peers.
Many thanks to the pupils and staff at Royal High School Bath, Cardinal Griffin Catholic College, Rosebery School and Bayce School for supporting the development of this school pack.
Register for our pack
This pack is available for all schools, free of charge. We encourage all schools who use this pack to support our charitable work by making a suggested £5 donation.
Please fill in the form below and you will be redirected to a page with links to all the documents. Please note: the PDFs will download directly to your device, so please check out your 'downloads' file.
If you have any issues with downloads or trouble accessing the files, please contact [email protected] .
Support for children and young people
- The Mix – a UK-based charity that provides free, confidential support for young people under 25. Young people can get support from the trained team, either by phone, webchat, or email
- Shout 85258 – a free, confidential, 24/7 text-messaging support service.
- Samaritans – a UK-based charity that provides support at any time, from any phone, for free. Call free on 116 123 or email [email protected] .
Support for school staff
- Education Support – Education Support provides mental health and well-being support to teachers and education staff in schools, colleges, and universities. Call free on 08000 562 561 to speak with a qualified counsellor. They will offer you immediate, confidential emotional support.
Support for parents and caregivers
- Young Mind’s Parent Helpline and Webchat provides advice and support for parents and caregivers who are worried about a child or young person.