Cam's Den launch at Carlton Primary School
Monday, October 25, 2010
On Thursday 21st October the communications team and other members of staff involved with the Cam's Den website project visited Carlton Primary School for a launch event to mark the end of a two-year project to create an emotional wellbeing website for children in Camden.
The site is designed to introduce mental health education to children aged 7-10 years, providing them with a fun and safe environment in which they can learn more about emotional issues and develop robust coping skills at an important stage in their mental development. Other key goals of the website include improving awareness about mental health for young people, clarifying what actually happens at a clinic appointment and attempting to tackle the stigma that still surrounds mental health issues.
The launch at Carlton Primary School involved a special 'Cam's Den' assembly, where Project Lead Dr. Sally Hodges and the website's animator Dan Good from Absolutely Cuckoo (who also created characters for the hit CBeebies show Waybuloo) presented the Cam's Den puppets to an audience of enthusiastic children! After the assembly, we took a group of children to an IT suite so they could test the site, which proved to be a great success. After that we held a 'create a sock-puppet' session in a classroom with the children, following the step-by-step instructions on the promotional DVD we created, courtesy of additional funding from the British Psychologicial Society. All in all it was undoubtedly a fun and rewarding day!
Project Manager Georgina Selby said: "It was an amazing day - it was a slightly nerve-racking task unveiling Cam's Den to our most important critics: an assembly of 200 children! If the clapping, singing and laughing was anything to go by it was a resounding success. I'd like to say well done and a huge thank you to everyone who was involved with creating the site, including our own clinican and non-clinical staff, NHS Camden, the BPS, Brighter Day Music, design company Elmwood, animation company Absolutely Cuckoo and Redhouse Lane for completing the website build."
Check out the website at this address: www.camsden.co.uk