Bredon School's senior mental health lead training

At Bredon School our school nurse is our senior mental health lead, and she recently completed the Department of Education-approved senior mental health lead training with Anna Freud. Being taken through the 5 Steps framework step-by-step on the training was extremely useful. The framework is easy to follow and understand, and we now structure our mental health activity around the 5 Steps. We can move through it at our own pace with ongoing review, and have found a number of strategies which we have been able to implement in our school. We now have a proactive approach to mental health, rather than reactive. We are better able to support and upskill the whole school community, including staff and parents. This whole-school approach also communicates a more positive and open attitude to mental health. We have surveyed staff and students with evidence-based surveys, and from insights learned in the training we can measure and monitor what difference our initiatives make. We also learned that showing leadership and commitment by engaging and working with staff, students and parents makes a big difference to their perceptions of being supported in school. We now also have a mental health action group who meet on a regular basis, and their work is structured around the 5 Steps. In May 2022, thanks to this work, we won the ‘Wellbeing and Mental Health Initiative Award’ at the Boarding Schools’ Association (BSA) Supporting Excellence Annual Awards. We feel that the Centre is leading the way in helping schools across the country implement and improve mental health and wellbeing provision in schools.