22/11/2025
It's not just children that enjoy Noodles company when he visits schools. Staff love spending time with him too.
People forget about staff in schools. Their mental health and wellbeing needs are crucial too.
Teachers, teaching assistants, clerical staff and other roles within schools are facing so many daily challenges. Often they are the ones in the front line, trying to support children's mental health & the needs.of neuro diverse minds.
Educational staff are now the stop gap between the services so many children need.
Imagine working in a classroom with 30+ children. In the past it was expected everyone should learn the same thing, at the same space in a standard environment.
Now imagine, you are in a classroom as a 13 year old. You are quiet and shy in personality. You like routine, things to be the same and happening in the same way at the same time. You struggle with noise, movement, space arrangement and your mind can't focus with distractions.
Now imagine that you struggle to sit still, you need to move, you struggle to concentrate and your mind races with ideas and you want to tell the world what you know, see and hear. You want to run about as you have a surge of energy and enjoy expressing yourself with words and enjoy making people laugh.
Then imagine feeling sad all the time. Nothing makes you happy. The lessons drag and you dread waking up, you dread walking to school, you dread sitting with other people and the worry of being asked if you are ok, how you are feeling or what you think or know.
Factor in a child who may suffer from trauma. They are in fight, flight or simply fall down and flop on the floor. The slightest thing could trigger them as their body is in a fight for survival. Outside of school they are seeing, hearing and being treated in ways no one should be treated. They are seen as naughty by the world but you have that gut feeling, there is something much more than just misbehaving.
This could be just one classroom. Then factor all the demands from the school management, parents, local authorities, governments and those services in between.
Noodle goes in, he takes people's minds away from thinking about what has happened, what is going to happen. He adapts to different children. He goes in and leads the way.
He promotes curiosity, to help lower barriers, develop bonds, promote trust & provide unconditional love
Noodle has had 14 children with a range of diverse minds, sit still, listen and ask fantastic questions & the staff were amazed & full of praise. Imagine having Noodle as a tool in your schools armoury at regular times in supporting groups or individual children
Paws4Minds Noodle: Wellbeing Support Dog
Working alongside,Noodle our therapy dog/wellbeing support dog, Paws4Minds provide Mental Health Awareness, support, coaching & education for organisations & individuals
