Life

Edmodo & Happy Not Perfect Teamed Up To Make This Life Changing Mental Health App

by Aoife Hanna

Do you remember the fresh hell, stress and chaos that were your school years? If you don't then I am absolutely positive your parents do. My mum still has nightmares that one of her kids has slept through an exam (that never happened). I am positive your former teachers remember it and are probably still in the grip of it. Luckily though, there's a mental health resource for students, parents, and teachers. And thank eff for that because all three groups feel the strain of eduction from start to finish. Here's how to get Happy Not Perfect and Edmodo's mental health tools.

Happy Not Perfect is a mindfulness app created by Poppy Jamie. They describe their mission statement being "to help you feel good from the inside out. No-nonsense, research-backed tools and products to care for your mind". Sounds good to me. Happy Not Perfect has now also teamed up with Edmodo, which is a huge international education app which is, "dedicated to improving the learning for students, teachers, parents, and admins everywhere"

The app hopes to provide over 100 million teachers, students, and parents with wellness and mental health solutions. 194 countries will be able to benefit from this service, which will be a combination of content and digital tools that aim to help teachers and their students get in the very best tip-top mindset for learning. You can access the content via both the Happy Not Perfect and Edmodo apps. If you use the latter, Happy Not Perfect content will appear in your main feed, and there's also exclusive content if you accesss the partnership via the Edmodo platform.

In a statement issued to mark the launch, the partners noted that multiple research projects have proven that academic achievement is hugely supported by social and emotional learning. Add to that the fact that it nurtures more compassion and empathy among students, and its importance is even clearer. Sadly, studies have proven that within schools with little or limited assistance, wellbeing can be significantly impacted, thus reaching "critically low levels." In fact, according to a study by Barnardos in February 2019, "almost half of children aged 12 to 16 in England feel sad or anxious on a weekly basis."

Well where is the help then? The sad fact is that the Department of Education's research found that "almost half (45 percent) of school leaders have found it difficult to commission mental health support for their pupils, and over a third (34 percent) of counsellors and psychotherapists who work with children and young people said it was difficult to provide their services to schools".

This app aims to change that and make mental wellbeing more accessible for those in need. Over the next year the app will be releasing new content that are intended to deal with different subjects like "confidence, stress, focus, the science behind gratitude, compassion, thinking of others and setting goals".

The app will provide interactive, scientifically based exclusive content to its users including

  • How to Become A Mindfulness Super Hero with Edmodo (Guided by Happy Not Perfect Founder, Poppy Jamie)
  • What Are Emotions (Dr Sophie Mort, Clinical Psychologist and Life Coach)
  • 7 Days Of Epic Happiness (Jody Shield, author of Life Tonic, Mindfulness and personal development coach)
  • 21 Days of Free Your Mind writing challenge (Guided by Ben Jackson, Executive Director of The Writing Salon)
  • Prepare your mind for anything! Exam, test or meeting! (Ko Im, Certified Meditation Teacher and content director at NBC)

What more is there to like? This app is exciting for the future of education, and shows how open people are about the importance of mental health in 2019. Hopefully this app will help students improve upon their educational performance and set them up for a healthy, happy life.