We all want our children to lead happy and fulfilling lives. However, poor mental health can hinder their growth and development. That’s why it’s crucial to prioritise enhancing early life relationships and experiences. By doing so, we can significantly reduce the likelihood of children developing mental health issues, which have unfortunately been on the rise. Let’s work together to create a brighter future for our children.
Promoting healthy attachment between infants and caregivers is vital. Offering support and resources to parents and caregivers to understand the importance of secure attachment and providing tools for nurturing it can greatly contribute to a child’s emotional well-being. Moreover, raising awareness about children’s mental health and reducing the stigma surrounding seeking help for children and their families should be a responsibility for all.
The foundations of our mental health are being shaped from before we are born. Touch, smell, taste, sight, and sound provide the early stimulation for our developing brain. Neural connections are continuously formed from our interactions and experiences – more than one million per second. Exposure to disruptions during this developmental period can impact a child’s ability to enjoy relationships, learn, and believe their world is safe. Negative experiences can have lifelong consequences.
Our vision
To improve the mental health and resilience of our children and future generations.
Our mission
We believe improving the knowledge and skills of parents will positively impact their children’s mental health.
The incidence of mental health issues among children is increasing daily, and this has a direct impact on the number of adults who suffer from poor mental health.
We aim to decrease the number of children who suffer from poor mental health. As services are becoming overwhelmed with increasing cases, enhancing how children learn and develop in their surroundings is crucial. Early intervention plays a vital role in this regard. We can prevent the issues from worsening by recognising the signs of distress or developmental problems in infants and young children and providing timely assistance.
Connections help parents and caregivers of babies and young children create more meaningful and empowering connections that will give their tiny humans the best possible start in life and help lay strong foundations that will serve them well throughout their lives.
Our team share a special interest in psychological trauma and is guided by trauma-informed practices. We know the strength of early life connections is influential in how we live out our lives, noting that the stronger, more consistent, and reliable those early life connections are, the more likely the child is to have greater physical and mental health throughout childhood and into adulthood.
We are passionate about the role of psychotherapy in helping people work through childhood adversities. However, we believe that prevention is key. In many cases, the experiences of those who access CAMHS, counselling, and psychotherapy services could have been avoided if the significant adults in their lives had understood the impact and long-term consequences of their interactions, as well as the consistency of those interactions during their early years. Our experience, learning, and understanding have informed our Connecting With workshops, which aim to improve outcomes for our loved ones.
Connections is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company.