Alumina self harm workbook for youth review by Becky Lawrence, youth & kids worker St Mark’s MK & Youthwork+ Founder

I don’t know about you but in my experience its pretty hard to work with young people without becoming aware of their mental health struggles at some point.  In every context i’ve worked in with teenagers – church, schools and community settings, i’ve sadly come across young people who self harm.  And those were just the ones I knew about – there were probably more keeping their self harm a secret or with less visible signs & scars.  Even in a church small group of 10 youth, i’ve had at least 3 young people who have struggled with self harm.  Chances are that whether you are aware of it or not – there is at least one young person in your group who is/or has self harmed.

Having tools to recommend or use with young people who self harm is really important for any youth worker.  As well as keeping mental health on the radar and creating a safe listening environment so that young people know they can come to you (or another leader) with any struggles, worries or concerns about themselves or any other members of the group.

I first came across the Youthscape self harm materials several years ago when they launched national youth project Selfharm.co.uk, more recently it’s known as Alumina and is a great tool and resource for youth leaders, parents and young people themselves.

Alumina is an online course developed by a team of professionals and youth workers, to help young people understand why they are harming and find better ways of coping.

Recently Youthscape have created a new Alumina  workbook (written by Jenny Flanagan and Jenny Cavendish) that can be used by young people themselves on their own, or during 1-2-1 mentoring, or maybe even in a small group (perhaps if you have a couple of young people all struggling with self harm who already know each other).  As with all Youthscape material its suitable for young people with a faith, or none and anywhere in between.

 

Here’s what Youthscape say about it:

“We are thrilled to bring together everything we have learnt through running the course online and to make it accessible to more young people, and anyone trying to support them.

The Alumina workbook is designed for young people themselves and can be used alone; it works best, however, when an adult and young person can work through the sessions together.

The book contains seven sessions which explore topics like why people self-harm, why it becomes addictive, how we make sense of emotions, how to challenge negative thinking and why we need support from other people. It draws on the latest insights from neuroscience and psychology.”

 

And here’s a quote from a young person about the resource…

“The workbook is a really insightful guide to start thinking about your relationship with self-harm – I feel like I understand myself and my self-harm journey much better and the range of topics covered through the sessions makes me feel heard and understood. I like that there are a lot of helpful interactive exercises, because they encourage you to think about how the information can apply to your own experiences and what you can take forward into your day to day life.” – Young person

 

It’s available now on the YS Store – for £12.99 https://www.youthscape.co.uk/store/product/alumina-workbook

The online Alumina course and other useful tools and info about self harm as well as free online support for 14-19’s can be found here: https://www.selfharm.co.uk/