A COMMUNITY-led organisation teamed up with a notable author, coach, and speaker to help provide emotional resilience sessions for school children.

The Tiptree Community Hub has spent six weeks working alongside Ali Knowles, the author behind Ollie and his Superpowers, to help children build emotional resilience and support their mental health and wellbeing.

From April 15 until May 20, pupils aged nine to 13 were invited from Mildene Primary School, Tiptree Heath Primary School, St Luke’s Primary School, and Thurstable School, to take part.

Alison Knowles, better known as Ali, penned Ollie and his Superpowers to help children understand and manage their emotions and mental health.

Braintree and Witham Times: Amazing - pupils with Ali Knowles at the Tiptree Community HubAmazing - pupils with Ali Knowles at the Tiptree Community Hub (Image: Tiptree Community Hub)

The colourful book follows the young character as he learns about his superpowers, his emotions and feelings, he then uses his powers to overcome bullies at his school.

Tiptree Community Hub director Terri Daniels learned about Ali's work, loved it, and set about raising funds to provide these sessions to children of Tiptree.

During the sessions, the children learned tools and strategies to safely navigate and understand their feelings and develop resilience in order to cope with everyday struggles, under a framework called Ollie coaching sessions.

The trained cognitive hypnotherapist, Ali, has also released many other Ollie books which teach invaluable lessons to youngsters.

Ali worked with the pupils in group and it was a great success.

Terri said: “We are so thrilled to have been able to fund these sessions at the community hub, we knew the great results that can be achieved with the Ollie coaching session’s and desperately wanted to bring it to the children of Tiptree.

“We wanted so much for children to benefit from something to develop their emotional resilience and well being.

"These sessions have been invaluable to those involved, week on week we have watched the children grow in confidence and learn new coping techniques.” 

All the children received a red-t shirt and certificate from Liz Baker, the marketing manager at Tiptree’s Wilkin and sons, which supports the community hub.

Liz said: “The children are now all ‘Ollie Coaches’.

Liz said "It's wonderful what they hub are doing, and we wanted to support with this.”

Ali said: "When the hub contacted me and said they had heard about our fantastic programs, I was flattered.

"I heard more about the amazing work the hub does for people in and around Tiptree, and I just thought it was amazing, I wanted to help all I could.

"I hope we get the opportunity to work with more kids, teens, and their amazing parents because the change in everyone involved and the feedback from the sessions was humbling."