cool thank you okay so welcome to Liam from sticks um sticks is a new product that we've been trying out at some of our semmax schools recently um and it's linked with mindfulness and well-being um and I think it's a really cool device but I'm going to hand over to Liam who will tell us all about it thank you Liam thanks Mary hi everyone my name is Liam uh founder of sticks um we've developed a product that teaches children mindfulness and well-being strategies in a screen-free way uh guiding th
em through audio based activities uh and I'll take you through what the product involves now um how we came about developing it how long we've been running for and I can present you our sort of um offering today of a free trial at the end um and any questions please ask I'm using CA which I've never used before so let's go all right so obviously we all know the the Mental Health crisis that um our children are facing um with one five children suffering from a mental health issue it's something t
hat is getting worse every year the NHS referral rates to going up uh there's less budget to actually support the children and schools are suffering they're not able to support them in the right way and the consequences of that means that as children get older they develop these mental health conditions that will then stay with them for life and when you consider that 50% of adults with a mental health condition developed them before the age of 14 it shows we need to work support children at ear
stage so that we can teach them preventive measures to stop mental health conditions from arising but that doesn't mean they won't stop and so teaching them something at younger age can really help and the example that actually inspired sticks was my brother and his ADHD growing up um when I started developing this product my brother's only a year younger than me so he's already too old for it um but his experience with medication growing up was something that other families told me they were u
m facing as well where he didn't like taking the medication despite it being quite good for his behavior it made him feel worse than he wasn't himself and so we were always as a family looking for alternatives to support him um and there are many other families like this and children aren't getting the support they need um if they don't want to be taking it then they often have to suffer the consequ consequences of their ADHD because they're not necessarily being taught how they can manage their
behaviors separate from medication and so that's why we created SS so it's an Interactive device that um speaks to you guides you through different well-being activities with audio built into it so there's two handheld devices similar to a Wii remote with lights audio vibration feedback um and they can detect movement as well so the activities are interactive they provide sensory feedback throughout and almost um react to the children's movements depending on the activities so there are 12 acti
vities involved which I'll take you through shortly um involving how to sort of support their resilience boost their focus ease anxiety learn techniques to deal with different situations so that when they don't have the sticks they still got the technique that they learned from the product it's all taught to them in a screen free way so the audio comes from the device there is a screen with it so it's always a tricky thing to say it's Screen through uh but you don't need it if you're a school th
at didn't like devices um you could simply pick up the sticks remotes hold the buttons down and it will launch a screen-free activity and basically start speaking to the child and guiding them through deep breathing exercises um and then you can you can keep playing along in a sequence so they have different activities each time however if you do have access to iPads or phones or any device that um can download apps on it you can download the sticks app which allows you to choose your activity t
rack your progress and also earn rewards so children have a sense of accomplishment when they complete their activity because they earn Stars which they can then use to develop a monster character so all of this has been designed alongside psychologist so it's very research Le uh it's based on research and then we've also taken it into a into a school where we did a four-week study um which showed improvements in anxiety and depression scores as well as 100% of the kids loving the product which
is one the best things so yeah this this shows how you can use it with or without the screen so you can select from the app send it over to the sticks and that's your choice of activity or you can simply hold the buttons down and it'll play audio to you straight away so these are some of the activities on the app or like I said that you randomly select we've got four categories so we have breathing activities body focused activities thoughts and feelings and heart breathing is things like uh bel
ly breathing which is a technique many of you will know already um but we do it in a fun way that makes children visualize it so that they can really understand how to do it um and then exercise on the sticks is called um balloon breathing balloon arms we have to breathe in lift the arms up and breathe out lift the arms down just like you're an inflating and deflating balloon and as you do that the noises come from the sticks to sort of illustrate that the balloon is inflating deflating to guide
them along then we've got body focused activities which are more movement based and focus on feelings of the body and how to sort of understand them uh so that when they're you know fidgeting they can understand that you know they might be energetic and need to release that energy so these ones involve a bit more movement so sticks balance for example gets you to sh take out all your excess energy and kids go crazy and wiggle around but then they have to go through several rounds of staying sti
ll and balancing and so they have to focus whilst they're on one leg and um the sticks can detect movement so if they start fidgeting uh the sticks will the lights will change from green to Red to indicate that they're moving and you know they need to refocus and stay still and there are three rounds So within each round you get a break and you can shake off your excess energy again and then learn to refocus there's a way to teach them how to focus on their body release their energy then Focus A
gain release their energy and it helps children understand what they can do in the real world thoughts and feelings actually has two of the crowd favorite activities so this is how you uh focus on your thoughts and feelings and can let them go when they come into your brain into your mind um Bubble popping is the crowd favorite so that's about imagining your thoughts as bubbles floating in the air and you have to use the sticks rootes to pop them so you just go like this and you gently pop the s
ticks when a thought comes into your head and it makes a popping sound when you do that movement um and children love that one because it's quite easy to take away from the stakes as well so when they're in a situation where they're upset or maybe stressed they can visualize their thoughts and their anger or anxiety as a bubble in the air that they can pop and it helps them sort of release that stress and then finally we've got heart Focus activities which is all about compassion gratitude ways
to teach young children how to be thankful for you know what's around them and uh to make them appreciate everything so in terms of the benefits for your schools so the product's been tested in the school scenario and it's shown that it does boost the classroom atmosphere it makes everyone Karma and it means that children can identify when they are maybe struggling and want to sort of relax they can put their hand up and have a quick Break um go out and use a sticks maybe in the sensory room or
maybe have the sticks at the back of the classroom and it allows children to identify when they need it which they then come back to the class and there's an enhanced sort of atmosphere because of that we can also um suggest that it improves a teacher child relationship because you can have one each and so if you have a a teaching assistant for example that takes a child out you can both share a sticks and do the activity together which is a great way to build that Bond and overall there is a st
rong um correlation between practicing mindfulness and having a positive impact on academic performance but overall for us it's about teaching children the well-being techniques that they can then use when they're in the classroom setting so they don't necessarily need to have that sensory brain break in order to come back and chill out they actually know how to do that already when they're in the cing set in the classroom settings that they can refocus their attention and get on with their um t
heir class so the perfect um scenario that we had was um or the perfect testimonial was a school that's using sticks they purchased five and they had one child who was sitting their SATs exam and halfway through they were just too anxious they couldn't complete it and had to leave U the teacher sat down with them they both did some breathing exercises with the sticks and then she went back in and finished her sets so it's a great testimonial to show how you know they can have that separation hav
e that break and then come back and continue the task that they could previously complete so like I said before the the children love the product um it's suitable for the classroom suitable for separate from the classroom the sensory rooms but it's just it's it's more fun than listening to a YouTube meditation if you if you give them a phone and put on head space or just a breathing activity it's quite passive they don't they don't do anything they can quite quickly forget what's going on and lo
se concentration whereas the sticks is a tangible product that they're holding they're experiencing it in the real world it's talking to them and giving them feedback throughout so it's it's relatable for them and basically provides them more of a tangible experience to help them relax then in terms of the teachers it's a bit wordy so you don't need to read off the screen but uh essentially the teachers that have been using it love it and it's it's showing great examples like in the the classroo
m the SAT exam uh children having anxiety pre-exam and being able to continue because of the sticks and just being able to sort of manage the stress because of all the pressure and everything that we put on children at the moment um this product allows them to take that separation and learn how to relax so we we launched last year and actually we didn't necessarily think we'd be selling into schools but we launched selling to parents then through natural sort of testing we found that actually sc
hools was a great place for it um and so we've been um doing Trials of schools um where you maybe have the product for one or two weeks for free we send it to you and you see what you think and it's for us it's to learn more about how you use it how the kids get on with it what activities work for them what don't um how many children use it at once there every school is different and so we're still learning how the school will use it and for for you guys it will allow you to see whether it's som
ething that's suitable for your school uh for your send provision or any sensory rooms that you might have or one in every classroom for example this trial allows you to see if it's suitable for your school so we are doing that now and if any of you would like a free trial then please just get in touch um we can set that up over the next few weeks um and then obviously when we go back to the reason we are doing the tri obviously is for commercial reasons too we want you guys to see if it's suita
ble for you but then it allows us to you know get the foot in the door let you experience it and then feedback whether it's something you'll purchase so one set of sticks from remot is 179 that comes with the 12 activities on the app which is free uh two users per device um access through one product obviously if you buy one but if you buy multiple you have multiple access and that also comes with a carry case to help protect them in the School scenario if you've got loads of kids using them it'
s almost essential to have that then I shouldn't have actually put this in this sticks premium is coming soon um and so that's going to have a load more activities um more users to access the product um and you'll have access through multiple devices it's not quite ready yet so that's why I shouldn't have it but it's something that if you did purchase the sticks remotes it would be easily upgraded to Sticks premium if you were interested in that as well um yeah thank you for listening to me if y
ou've got any questions then uh just fire away I'll see if I can answer that's great just got oh sorry Mary yeah on sorry Helen yeah I was just goingon to say I've just got one um because it's a device that they hold in their hands is it like a Wei remote it's got a wristband or anything like that in case I know a few children that would struggle to hold it the whole time um so it's it like the Re remote in the sense that you hold it but no it doesn't have a wristband at the moment uh that's som
ething we've been ask and that you know if schools found that to be useful we could try and mold that into the product but no at the moment there's no there's no ban but what we find is you don't necessarily need to hold it um it's something that's nice to hold it's quite a nice feeling in your hand once you have it quite a soft touch silicon material but if you just put it down in front of you and just breathe along with the lights instead there's still something to focus on that isn't necess a
ll right thank you thank you Helen um anyone else have a question or comments that they'd like to share Morin you're muted could you just talk us through um how like where you've done a trial in a school could you just maybe sort of talk us through a case study of how that worked how it went what they then chose to do with it yeah I mean the best example could be a pass it over to Mary because symac have been using the product and giving it to schools but before I do that I'll give you an exampl
e of one of the schools we've been working with um so uh there's one in Hayes which was probably the first school to actually use them uh and they did the research trial with Brunell and so they took it on they were the first people to really help us understand how schools used it and they've got a mix scenario so some they've got one set that's in one room and just stays there so the kids know that they can go to that Cal area and use it but then they've also got several others dotted around th
e school so in different classrooms they have they have one in each each classroom to allow each um year group to just understand where their sticks are and where they can go to pick them up but in terms of how they've used them so we'll give them for one or two weeks depending on on your needs we we've typically done two weeks but I've actually found that if you if you give it to schools for a shorter period of time it's less likely to just sit on the shelf for a week until they use it so if we
just say you have it for a week and then you can extend it if you want that's the best way that works for us but we can be quite flexible of that um and different schools do different things so like I said some have them with the Senco some Tas have them on them at all times and then others have them in in the back of their classroom so it really depends on the school the size of the school how many peoples they have that need them um and typically they identify children that they want to use t
he product with to see if it works for them so if we're going to a school then maybe they'll identify that a a child of ADHD or child of autism needs it whereas other schools have gone we just want it as an intervention tool that anyone can go and use if they're feeling anxious yeah I mean uh the student that I introduced it with he is in year three um he's he does have you know issues with sort of anxiety and coming into school he's he was finding that a bit of a struggle at times um he has uh
Child and Adolescent mental health support um so he has that three times a week um but we just wanted an extra sort of tangible thing that he could add to his daily program to support him with his you know his Cal in and his his ability to manage his feelings himself a bit better um and we found with him that he absolutely loves using them um he he's been using them for a couple of months now um and I would say he's now at the stage where he's sort of in internalizing the strategies a bit and he
's he's starting to use those strategies without having to have the sticks there present so he's actually taking you know all of the steps to calm himself and to use those mindfulness activities um you know when he's feeling a bit stressed or a bit anxious about something which is really lovely to see um and I know I've also sent it into a couple more schools in the local area um I can see Rebecca you're on the call I don't know if you have anything to say yet and it's very very early days for y
ou you um yeah um uh we have been using I've been using one set with um a small group of seven children and then it is really early days I've only had it about a week I think and um they're enjoying it that it's an enjoyable activity and then with the child that's got the most um issues I suppose um she she can do it onetoone with me or a TA h i mean they definitely so at the moment there's no like internalizing it but they it's an enjoyable thing for them to do and it just um can help them to i
t it gives us um kind of the language to talk about things as well so it is having a good impact at the moment we'll see how it goes um the only the thing that I was going to ask is is there a way to make them louder um not easily from the app right now as in from the app you have we've got a demo Beta app at the moment which does allow it so if we get in touch we can maybe um help you through that but it's a bit more of a technical step byep thing have to do on the in some ways it's not too the
y're not too quiet it's just that when I'm using them with a group they are and what I do as well is I give one stick to one child and one stick to another child so that they can kind of all hear but I did think oh if I could just make this a little bit louder it would be a bit easier um but no good um and they started working through the the app programs and stuff so it's it's quite nice that's really good to hear that is good to hear yeah um I'll come in and visit sometime after Easter Rebecca
and and see how they're all getting on with that yeah lovely okay any other questions comments from anyone else no I think that's all good um so yeah it'll be interesting to see the the additional activities are they sort of still categorized within the same areas Liam no so we've got new categories so like I said we've got um breathing body thoughts and feelings and heart at the moment we now that that's a very mindfulness Centric um process of learning how to do the breathing and then moving
all the way to compassion however now we've identified that actually people want to focus on the core um potential um challenges that they're facing so things like easing anxiety is one new category better sleep is an another um activity character character sorry long day to say um category um and so now we've got loads of different things that focus on exactly the pain points that families and schools have said they they want to focus on well sounds lovely thank thank you very much Liam um it w
as good to have you today and thanks everyone for joining we will send the recording out to everyone who's requested that as well afterwards so thanks everyone have a nice evening and do you need any any contact details should I leave them at the bottom yeah if you want to just put those into the chat maybe now yeah wonderful um and Liam I'll put the recording on our website as well so as well as emailing it out to people okay brilliant cool thanks for having time than thank you Liam are you all
right for just to stay on the call for another couple of minutes one's gone yeah thank you
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