A NEW story aims to help children and parents to understand and discuss their mental health ­— and is also raising funds for Carlisle Eden Mind.

Tess Colman, founder of wellbeing coaching organisation Connect 3 Coaching, put pen to paper during the first lockdown to create a story for children.

It is about a dormouse that has to hibernate for winter but he’s very confused by it.

She said: “At the time of the first lockdown, it was drawing similarities between this little mouse that has to go and hide himself away and that’s what we were all doing as people.

“I was very aware at that time that we were going to come out of that phase and how confusing it would be for children to go back into schools, get back to some normality and suddenly, where they have been kept away from people for so long, they were then expected to go back and be around people but with all these new rules in place.

“The idea of the story was just to normalise that a little bit, there is a theme of courage, resilience, being brave, and tackling what you need to tackle to persevere and get on with life.”

Tess usually spends her time in schools working with children on their wellbeing. However, this has not been possible recently due to Covid-19 restrictions. She still wanted to do something that would resonate with children.

She wrote the story in the hopes that it could be used as a resource when schools re-opened, but was uncertain about releasing it so she kept it to herself.

Tess said: “One of my nieces read it and she said ‘I’m going to illustrate it for you, I’m going to do some pictures’.

“She drew the pictures and she said ‘you’ve got to use it, it’s ridiculous just put it out there’.”

To access the tale, people can make a donation on JustGiving, which is then donated to Carlisle Eden Mind, and they then receive the digital version of the story from Tess. So far, more than £260 has been raised for the organisation.

To find out more visit justgiving.com/fundraising/connect-3-coaching