SELF-WORTH IN EDUCATION

Often used synonymously with self esteem, self-worth is the unconditional friendship you have with yourself throughout life’s ups and downs. Self-worth is not dependant on your accomplishments or failures; it is a constant throughout your life and helps us to rebound from the setbacks we encounter.
In a world obsessed with building self-esteem – doing activities to improve our reputation with ourselves – our sense of well-being hinges on performance, the whims of good luck and positive outcomes. But when we don’t measure up to our own tough standards, things don’t go our way or life falls apart, we are called to access a deeper source of resilience, that of self-worth

Self-worth is often left out of the discussion and as a result, we are seeing a decline in the mental health of our young people today. Solely focusing on self esteem has generated a society plagued with fears of inadequacy. It is admirable to work your way to the top, but what happens if or when you fall? By equipping young people with the unwavering power of self-worth we enable them at a young age to develop something static that will strengthen the inner core of who they are and will help them to overcome inevitable setbacks. Self-worth provides the resilience to recover from such challenges as academic struggles, career uncertainty, social exclusion, the loss of a relationship/friendship, financial worry and all of the feelings that can be associated with these. By thinking of self-worth as the roots of a tree and self esteem as the branches, we must find the intrinsic value of ourselves as individuals at our core, irrespective of our accomplishments and failures. We will not always feel “esteemed” in our lives but it is our self-worth that will allow us to keep going regardless or our accomplishments or lack of.

THE EDUCATION TEAM

ASHLEY LEITÃO

HEAD OF ADVISORY BOARD AND EDUCATION PROGRAM MANAGER 
As Self-Worth Academy’s Education Program Manager Ashley’s focus is on the integration of self-worth programming in the classroom of younger students and creating self-worth awareness for educators, support workers, parents and carers. “The first major step in the self-worth movement is being able to differentiate between self-worth and self esteem. Once this distinction is made the roots of self-worth can begin to grow on the basis of believing that we are valuable and worthy regardless of our accomplishments or failures”.

From Nova Scotia, Canada Ashley’s background in Sociology, her time as an instructor and her previous work with children as an in-school recreation coordinator fuel her interest to make positive change in the field of education. Areas of particular interest include resilience, intrinsic motivation, recognition, addiction, self-diagnosis and labelling. Ashley is also the Chair of Self-Worth Academy’s Education Advisory Board.

She welcomes the opportunity to speak with academics, support staff, policy makers, and professionals in the education sector who work with young people in an effort to gain valuable insights and to form partnerships. Feel free to reach out to Ashley to learn more about her role at Self-Worth Academy and our Education initiative.

GET IN TOUCH WITH ASHLEY

Telefone: +351 911 111 323
Email: yp@selfworthacademy.com

John W. Perry

ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER AND PRINCIPAL TEACHING FELLOW

John has over thirty years’ experience of working in education, as a teacher, college lecturer, student counsellor, mentor, university senior lecturer and pastoral tutor. He has a particular interest is in utilising coaching, counselling and/or mentoring to help young people to develop the confidence and motivation that comes from having high self-worth and a sense of purpose and direction.

In the course of his career, John has helped hundreds of young people to overcome their learning blocks and to replace limiting, self-defeating beliefs with empowering, positive alternatives. John has developed his own unique approach to building psychological resilience, by helping young people to take control of the challenges they face whilst generating positive emotions  and a ‘can do’ attitude.

John uses coaching, counselling and mentoring skills to help young people to move in the direction of the constructive accomplishment of their innate potential. More specifically, his focus is on helping young people to over-come self-doubt and to grow in confidence, resilience and
happiness.

John is currently a Principal Teaching Fellow in Healthcare Communication in the Faculty of Medicine @ the University of Southampton. He is also a qualified Counsellor, Coach,
Therapeutic Coach, Human Givens Psychotherapist, Reality Therapist, Logo-therapist, Hypnotherapist and Supervisor.
He has developed and facilitated a number of successful workshops for staff and students on the topic of Psychological Resilience and Wellbeing; and has been particularly successful in preparing students to undertake ‘High Stakes’ examinations.

If you would like to read a little more about his background, experience and approach, you can do so by clicking on the following links:

https://vistage.co.uk/speakers/john-perry
https://www.rachel-kelly.net/unconditional-self-acceptance/

STEVEN SELLERS

ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER AND INDEPENDENT BUSINESS CONSULTANT 
Stephen is married with three grown up children and has lived with his wife in Hampshire, UK for 35 years. Formerly a self-employed business adviser for 18 years helping clients in the agricultural sector across the South of England.

In 2008 he started the Social Enterprise FarmBuddies. FarmBuddies assists anyone from 9-90 years old with a Special Need to visit a farm in their area on a regular basis to improve their wellbeing. The concept of Social Farming is expanding and Stephen has help build a network of farms in the South East and the Channel Islands offering this service.

He has also published unique introductory guides for participants. The principal benefit of Social Farming is to deliver increased Self Worth.

www.farmbuddies.org.uk

Amy Moser

ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER AND SELF-WORTH COACH

Amy Moser is a coach based in Ealing, London. She has been a coach for ten years, after working in employee communication for 20 years. Amy is an associate with HelpingKids Ltd. and she has been working for four years at private schools in the West London area. www.helpingkids.co.uk

As a life coach that works with children age 6 to 16 and parents, Amy sees self-worth issues on a day-to-day basis. Seven out of 10 of her young clients see significant results after only five sessions. She uses solutions and techniques to overcome problems. Her focus is on “How can children increase self-worth? How do they get confident on the inside?” This includes work on the ABCs…
A for Anxieties (nightmares, exams, stage fright)
B for Behaviour (fighting, anger, homework)
C for Confidence (friends, school, home)

Amy is an expert in outcomes-based coaching, working with clients to:
– Get what they want out of the current situation
– Explore options and go toward their ideal state
– Find resources that will open new doors

Amy also specialises in coaching through change, redundancy and work/life balance issues. She has been these situations herself, using outplacement, negotiation and financial planning to best effect. As a mother of young children Amy knows the challenges of returning to work. She has benefited from coaching and understands how it can make a difference. Amy is known as a positive and encouraging coach. She helps others identify their options and find new ways to get what they want. She has an open and accessible style, and gets feedback on her coaching so that she can keep learning from others.

Amy’s formative career was in the consulting sector, where she worked a total of ten years in employee communications for global firms Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) and William M. Mercer (now Mercer Human Resource Consulting). She worked for five years as Internal Communications Partner at the BBC and had attachments to two change projects. Etihad Airways in Abu Dhabi was her most recent two-year communications role. Her work was strategic and involved coaching on an executive and managerial level.

Amy holds degrees in: Managerial Communication (MSc – Northwestern University – 1996) and English Literature/Communication (BA – DePauw University – 1991).
She has a Master Practitioner in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (Vievolve – Henley-upon-Thames – 2006), following a Business Practitioner certificate from the same INALPTA-certified programme in 2004. After she was accepted into their coaching programme, BBC sponsored her certificate from Management Futures’ Intensive Coaching Skills in 2008. In high school and university in the USA, Amy was selected and trained as a peer counsellor. She also volunteered as a counsellor for homeless teenagers during her eight years working in Chicago. In London she has volunteered at Crisis for Christmas and the National Childbirth Trust (NCT).

FRANCES REYNOLDS

ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER AND SELF WORTH COACH 
Frances Reynolds is an independent Education Professional based in the UK. She has over 30 years of experience working with young people in a range of settings and has
specialised in supporting SEN pupils.

In recent years she has noticed an increase in children struggling with mental health issues and believes there is a link between this and low self-worth.
Frances is particularly interested in supporting parents, children and teachers with their self-worth journeys.

BECOME A SELF-WORTH COACH

People who Self-Worth Coach to licence the program come from many walks of life. Some are trainers, wishing to add a dimension of self-worth to their skills transfer. Others are coaches or therapists working on a one-to-one basis with clients and seeing the relevance of self-worth in just about every session.

Some are in leadership development, tackling the challenges of feedback and managing change. Others have an education background and see specific challenges faced by young Millennials. A few are themselves in career-transition and having experienced what self-worth has done for them, would like to pass on this experience to other people.

When people license the Self-Worth Safari, they are trained to incorporate the materials into their own work: whether this is in management-development, personal-coaching or sales training. Some licensees are also invited to host Self-Worth Academy events and webinars, which enables their services to be visible to a wide international audience.

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