A Training Day with Nicola Morgan

By Gareth Evans, School Librarian based in Chippenham.

On Friday 29 March the CILIP Youth Libraries Group South West of England hosted a one-day training event run by internationally acclaimed author Nicola Morgan, author of around 100 books. In 2005 Nicola wrote her award-winning book, Blame My Brain, which explains to teenagers, teachers and parents what goes on inside a teenager’s head during adolescence. Since then Nicola has written several wellbeing books for teenagers, covering a range of topics like stress, friendships, bullying, social media and life online. The theme for the day was young people, mental health and reading. The event was attended by 80 professionals from school, university, health and public libraries.

The day was divided into three sessions. In the first session, Nicola discussed the development of a teenager’s brain, how this explains the behaviour and emotional problems teenagers have during adolescence. Nicola then went on to explain how we as adults get stressed and how this can relate to teenagers as well. Finally, she discussed the side effects of over-using screens & social media, and the impact on our concentration, self-esteem, mental health and lifestyle.

In the second session, Nicola went on to explaining her 6 strategies for supporting teens’ wellbeing. Some of these strategies we can adopt into our daily lives as well. Nicola’s first strategy touched on how to deal with stress management. She discussed the importance of understanding the biology of stress, and shared breathing tactics and empowering daily relaxation by doing activities that help you to relax or take your mind off your worries. The second strategy is building resilience, by being able to accept failure and setbacks, manage stress, to compartmentalise bad things and dare to try again. The third strategy was to support and value introverted people through understanding and discussions – giving introverts the time and place to be alone, but also encouraging them to practice extroverted skills and value their personality. The fourth strategy was about educating ourselves and teenagers about sleeping better. Nicola highlighted that sleep is important for our health, wellbeing and learning. She recommends that we improve our sleep hygiene by creating a routine every day that will wind down our heart rate and switch off any screen devices before going to bed. The fifth strategy is managing our screen time when using our computers, tablets or mobiles. She suggests that we switch off our phones or block social media messages when doing any major task. Removing the temptation of checking our phones means we can focus our energy into the task we are doing. In addition to this, for teenagers who feel bad about themselves, Nicola suggests switching off from using social media. Another great tip for teenagers is to remind them that not everything online is true. We should all balance our time on screen by spending more time on sleep, exercise, reading and doing other activities such as making friends and supporting each other.

The final strategy was covered in the last session of the day, which was to encourage people to read for pleasure (R4P). The Reading Agency has done loads of research looking at benefits of R4P. It has been highlighted that R4P involves people’s self-esteem, increase life expectancy, increases empathy, stress, academic results and much more. To encourage teenagers to enjoy R4P, let them choose their own books to read and not judge them for what they are reading. Create a positive reading culture in school, for example whole class reading (including adults), have book boxes in each class and share and discuss books as a class or in groups.

The three main things I have learned from the training day with Nicola:

• I now have a better understanding of how the teenager’s mind works and the issues teenagers face with their well-being in their daily lives. I would highly recommend that all teenagers, parents, teacher, school support staff and health workers read Nicola’s book “Blame My Brain”.
• How to introduce and develop a R4P culture in school and speak to your school senior team about the benefits of R4P.
• How to promote and build a collection of reading materials around wellbeing for teenagers to have access to.

Finally, here are some websites and books with useful information about teenagers’ wellbeing and Reading for Pleasure:

Websites

• Nicola Morgan’s Website – https://www.nicolamorgan.com/
• Young Minds – https://youngminds.org.uk/
• Reading Well – https://reading-well.org.uk/resources/young-people
• OU Reading For Pleasure – https://researchrichpedagogies.org/research/reading-for-pleasure
• National Literacy Trust – https://literacytrust.org.uk/
• Charlie Waller Memorial Trust – https://www.cwmt.org.uk/

Books

• Creating Readers: A Reflective Guide for School Librarians and Teachers by Prue Goodwin
• Positively Teenage – A Positively Brilliant Guide To teenage Well-Being by Nicola Morgan
• The Teenage Guide to Life Online by Nicola Morgan
• The Teenage Guide to Stress by Nicola Morgan
• Blame By Brain by Nicola Morgan
• Read To Succeed – Strategies to Engage Children and Young People In Reading For Pleasure Edited By Joy Court
• Reading by Right – Successful Strategies To Ensure Every Child Can Read To Succeed
• Getting The Buggers To Read: 2^nd Edition by Claire Senior