Publish date: 19 January 2026
'I love helping young people understand their mental health in ways that make sense to them – sometimes with a little help from Harry Potter or Pokémon' - Alex Rudd talks about her role as an educational mental health practitioner
My role includes:
- delivering evidence-based Low Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to children and young people on a one- to-one basis, or through their parents.
- supporting the development and implementation of a ‘Whole School Approach’ to mental health in schools.
- delivering advice or signposting in order to help children and young people access the right support at the right time.
My workday is split between these , and so a typical day might look like delivering one-to-one therapy with children and young people. Here we explore looking at the link between our thoughts, feelings, physical symptoms, and behaviours. Then delivering a whole class or parent workshop around managing worries and holding a consultation with a school to discuss young people who may need some additional support, and find the most appropriate service for them.
We offer support around a large range of mental health topics, and so even if my days follow a similar structure, they will never be the same. One day a workshop may be around managing worries, the next it could be self-esteem, exam stress, friendships, resilience, anxiety, or sleep hygiene. Similarly, I work with young people with a wide range of needs, and so I get to support them with difficulties such as low mood, social anxiety, generalised anxiety, panic, phobias, separation anxiety, and self-esteem.
I enjoy my job because I am constantly learning and finding new ways to approach the ways I teach young people about mental health. Each person I work with is unique and has their own interests, and so I can be creative in the ways I approach this.
Recently, I have helped a 9year-old who loves Harry Potter understand how to sort her worries by imagining the ‘sorting hat’ put these into Gryffindor (hypothetical worries) or Slytherin (practical worries). The next week she brought back her worry diary with all of these categorised perfectly using the Harry Potter analogy
Additionally, I helped a 15-year-old with a love of Pokémon understand his self-esteem by linking this into concepts from the game. For example, exploring what would go into his personal Pokédex entry to help him identify his strengths, innate traits, and what others find valuable about him. By thinking about Pokémon he admires and resonates with, he was able to identify his own positive attributes even though he had previously struggled to recognise any.
I’m responsible for organising my sessions and calendar, and therefore I can plan my days in a way that I can often utilise the option to work from home to complete my admin. This is something that I am very grateful for, as it has given me an excellent work-life balance that I haven’t experienced until this role.
As I work directly with children and young people on a one-to-one basis, it is always rewarding to feel the therapeutic relationship strengthening week by week, and to be able to celebrate their achievements with them as they apply the strategies they have learned and make progress towards their goals.
There is always a moment when things seem to ‘click’ for them, and I love watching this happen, as things start to only go uphill from there. Each young person sets goals in their first session, and I get to be their personal cheerleader when their scores start to creep up the scale, and they are beginning to do things they didn’t think were possible a few weeks ago.
It makes me feel proud when I know the positive impact I can have on their lives, and one parent even reached out to me a few weeks after the sessions finished to let me know their son was now riding his bike to school with his friend every day again – something he had been too anxious to do at all at the beginning of our sessions!
I am passionate about improving access to mental health support, and my team focuses on early intervention to improve outcomes, and help those who may go ‘under the radar’. We want every child to learn about mental health in the classroom to be able to understand how their thoughts, feelings, physical symptoms, and behaviours are all linked and can influence one another. This knowledge can empower them to communicate the support they need, and build a personal toolkit of strategies which can improve can their mental wellbeing.
Working closely with parents and school staff also helps to shift the narrative around mental health at home and in school, to achieve a more congruent and positive message. With each workshop, assembly, or intervention we deliver, we are increasing awareness and reducing the stigma around mental health, in order to help people to feel more comfortable discussing this.
Everyone has mental health, and most of us will experience dips and peaks in this over our lifetimes, but knowing ways we can manage this, or ask for help when we need it, will only help us work towards happier and healthier lives.
We can often underestimate the impact of small steps we can take to look after our mental health, but the Five Ways to Wellbeing is an excellent place to start. If we make sure to connect, be active, take notice, give, and keep learning, we will create a strong foundation to help us weather the storms life may throw at us. However, if we feel like the storms are too rough to withstand on our own, it is the brave thing to do to ask for help.