Bounce Back for parents and teachers

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”  Maya Angelou

Bounce Back Newham is a programme aimed at young people in Newham. Bounce Back Newham is full of insight, tips and tricks and has been designed to help young people understand the challenges they face in life, develop new strategies to deal with them and turn these strategies into new habits that stick. 

It is designed to help build resilience, the ability to get back on track emotionally and practically after problems. 

How does it work?

Youth Practitioners support children through group and 1-to-1 sessions to:

• Identify ‘moves’ that might help them feel more resilient
• Plan how they can tackle the problems they face
• Make their move to put their plan into action
• Think about how it went
• Learn what went well and what they could do better next time.

Children are also encouraged to spend time independently trying out new behaviours and activities to support their own wellbeing. They do this through having a go at suggested activities - from the classroom and from this website. And they are encouraged to spend reflective time - using a journal or a diary - working out why things do or don’t work, so they can learn and plan for the future.

How can parents and teachers help?

If you're a parent, carer or teacher, you can help by listening to your child’s ideas and supporting them in getting organised. They may come to you for support in implementing a ‘move’ or because they want help to find the space and time to think about what’s working and what’s not. Alternatively they may just want to talk about their progress. Open questions like, ‘how are you getting on with your moves?’ or ‘what could get in the way of your plans?’ can help them. So get ready to bounce too! 

Bounce Back Newham is all about action. ‘Moves’ are planned, taken and adjusted over a couple of months, and young people can do as many or as few as they like. Perhaps the biggest difference you can make is to help a young person stay motivated and see their training through to the end. 

About the Bounce Back website

We know that bouncing back is about what happens in the real world, not online. But this website is here to help when you’re looking for ideas, inspiration and motivation. 

Whether you’re a young adult, a parent or a teacher, you’ll find lots of useful tips and tricks here. And you’ll also find stories from all kinds of people - young people from Newham, successful sports people and musicians, and young people around the world - about the ways they have found to stay motivated and keep bouncing back. 

From training exercises to advice on the importance of physical activity, this resource has been created in response to feedback from young Newham residents.

There’s also a check-in tool so participants can take some time to see how things are going and get ideas for how they can keep going with their resilience journey.

Participants can come back, check and plan new actions or moves and find out how other people have made that move work for them whenever they like.