Rate a celebrity

This session can be used as a starter to ‘What is emotional health?’ or ‘Ups and downs of the day’.

20 minutes

Create a safe and positive learning environment by agreeing ground rules for the session.

In this session we will learn:

  • the difference between physical and emotional health
  • that everyone has ups and downs
  • we can easily make assumptions about emotional health without knowing what’s really going on
  • to consider what we know about the emotional health of others.

Resources

  • magazine pictures of various well-known people (collect beforehand)

Activity

  • Ask students to work in small groups and select ten pictures. Ask the class to sort these celebrities into order of most to least healthy. Then ask students to sort them in order of emotional health and physical health. Share findings and encourage comment and discussion on what constitutes health and whether we can ever really know what someone’s health is like without asking and getting to know someone. Can we judge by appearances?
  • As a class discuss: what do they know about the challenges these people face and how they are coping? Discuss – do we really know things about these people or are we making assumptions about their emotional health? Remind the class of the definition of emotional health. How would we find out about their emotional health? Emphasise that we can only find out by getting to know someone and asking them how they are. What is helpful to hear is how celebrities talk about their emotional health publically and share stories of how they coped. Can anyone think of examples of positive role models for good emotional health?
  • What would be the indicators of positive emotional health? Ask students to decide, in pairs, three things that might indicate positive emotional health – and three things that might indicate poor emotional health. Feed back thoughts.

Reflection

What has changed as a result of this session?

Links

This session links to: Developing listening skills | Supporting friends | What is emotional health? | Ups and downs of the day | Making assumptions | Expressing feelings

Make sure young people know what support is available and how to access this support.