Five steps, one week

The sheet

The NHS’s five steps to mental wellbeing as a week on the fridge: one easy thing for each step, with no scores and no prizes.

For the fridge · A4 landscape · One page · PDF, 52 KB

How it helps

The NHS’s five steps to mental wellbeing are simple things that help anyone, children and parents alike. Doing them together for a week turns them into something the family does, so nobody is being told to look after themselves.

How to use it

1. At a weekend meal, choose one easy thing for each step together, and write it in. With younger children you choose; with teenagers, ask whether they want to join in.
2. Put it on the fridge and tick them off as the week goes, with no scores and no prizes. Do the steps yourself too, and let the children see you do them.
3. At the end of the week, ask everyone which one they liked, and keep that one going.
4. If your child seems low whatever you try, or has been low, anxious or withdrawn for more than a couple of weeks, talk to your GP or their school.

How to get this sheet

This sheet comes with a subscription. It is also yours with its chapter, if that is the chapter you read free, or if a teacher or therapist sends it to you. School staff and therapists signed in to their shelf can print it too.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full, with its sheets. This one goes with When You Are Not All Right and When Reassurance Stops Working.

Free to print

These are free to anyone, with nothing to sign up for.

• A plan for a bad dayTo fill in together · A4
• Before you ring the schoolFor a call or a meeting · A4
• What to say: school and friendsCards to cut out · A4, eight cards to cut
• Before the SENCo meetingFor a meeting · A4
• Three reports, side by sideFor a meeting · A4 landscape
• The return-to-school meetingFor a meeting · A4
• The move to secondary school, for a parents’ eveningFor a parents’ evening · A4, five pages
• The last half-hour before bedFor the fridge · A4
• The worry ladderTo fill in together · A4
• Before you see the GP about your childFor an appointment · A4, two sides
• A record of what happenedFor a call or a meeting · A4, two pages
• The people I can tellTo make together · A4, two pages

Every sheet, marked free or with a subscription, is at theparentbook.com/printables.