Dave Read

Emotional Literacy in Action: Positive Mental Health through Practical, Holistic Wellbeing

Dave Read is a highly experienced classroom teacher and professional therapist. He is also the author of CoolFire – an innovative, holistic approach to developing Emotional Literacy - and has worked with over 7,500 students and 3,500 teachers over the last five years in schools and organisations throughout the UK and Europe – including the EU; Israel’s MOFET Institute; the Association for Teacher Education in Europe (ATEE); Thurrock and Southend Borough Councils; North Yorkshire County Council; NASUWT teaching union.

Dave has created a unique combination of easy-to-understand theory and established therapeutic techniques, which not only has an immediate beneficial impact but also works to establish an everyday state of Energised Calm that will underpin long-term personal development – both within students (ages 3-16+) and teachers.

You can choose from a range of highly practical, interactive sessions, workshops and PSHE topics that can be further specifically adapted to support your school’s development. All will enable teachers and students to explore how they think, feel and act – how Mind, Body and Feelings are intrinsically connected – and how they continuously interact to create every aspect of our lives. The inclusive support pack makes all the techniques easy to implement and instantly usable.

Through a mix of information/discussion, practical exercises, breathwork, guided visualisation – and more – teachers and school staff will directly experience a deep state of calm and relaxation - and explore how to:

• Understand “Why you feel the way you feel”
• Understand how you can feel well and more energised through positively working with the everyday biochemistry that your Mind-Body-Feelings interaction creates
• Understand and create your own Positive Inputs framework
• Translate these new insights into practical, beneficial classroom practice
• Consciously “Change the feeling; change the thought; change the action”
• Beneficially change classroom teacher-student and peer-to-peer interaction
• Work with challenging behaviour
• Use “Switches” to instantly create a state of calm focus in your students
• “Take a Step Back...” – to create less reactive perspectives – to classroom situations; work-related issues; professional and personal relationships
• Greatly reduce personal stress and tension
• Develop compassion for yourself
• Relieve or eradicate potential everyday symptoms/illness – for example: Headaches; Insomnia; Irritable Bowel Syndrome; Neck and Back pain

From open drama-style workshops to class-based sessions, students of all ages quickly learn through a dynamic mix of experience and technique – including practical exercises; movement/dance; breathwork; guided visualisation; reflection/processing; role play; creative writing, artwork – and more – all enabling students of all ages to explore:

• Ways of developing an everyday state of Energised Calm
• The Mind-Body-Feelings connection and their everyday interaction
• Practical ways of creating a balance between these frequently conflicting forces
• Brief, everyday exercises and routines – both school and home-based
• Techniques to consciously “Change the Feeling...”
• Ways to consciously direct and channel abundant energy into a chosen activity or mental state
• Making calm, conscious choices – to be the “Cause” not the “Effect” of their actions
• Ways of taking a “Step Back” – creating a more objective and grounded perspective – on learning, relationships – and home/personal life
• Creating a “safe” personal space – emotional, mental and physical
• The vital role of our physical bodies and the function of major organs
• How our choice of “inputs” directly affects our emotional, physical and mental states – in particular: food/nutrition and electronic devices