Whole school procedures

The senior leadership team should ensure that:

• All staff are committed to the promotion of mental health for all children and adults.
  
  
• There is an understanding of the implications of the SEMH strategy within their role in school, including the links between SEMH and SEND.
  
  
• Parents and visitors feel welcome and included in the school community.
  
  
• There are information leaflets available for staff and parents about different aspects of SEMH.
  
  
• There are systems in place that:
  
  
  • promotes a sense of belonging such as house groups, clubs, team sports, class/tutor group
    
    
  • promotes the opportunity for social engagement and safe spaces and promotes SEMH on the playground at breaktimes and lunchtimes, e.g. through friendship benches, specific activities
    
    
  • avoids social exclusion, such as monitoring areas of the school environment that are unsupervised
    
    
• Appropriate behaviour is modelled by adults in the school.  Adults and children/young people treat each other with respect and kindness.
  
  
• There is an emphasis on teaching and encouraging desired/ appropriate social, emotional skills and positive mental health rather than focussing on inappropriate, negative behaviour, e.g. through Emotion Coaching.
  
  
• All staff understand the need for a flexible approach to the management of children and young people’s behaviour, in line with school policy. This includes an awareness of the communicative intent of behaviour.
  
  
• There are processes in place that ensure that children/young people are aware of and involved in whole school decision making including support available in school regarding mental health, eg Pupil forums, School Councils, etc.
  
  
• Staff skills are regularly audited (see Quality First Teaching section and Teacher Self-Audit) and further training in SEMH is offered to staff groups and individual staff when required.
  
  
• Schools encourage and support a team approach to addressing SEMH needs. In particular:
  
  
  • Staff are given encouragement and opportunities to discuss concerns, problem solve and provide support both practically and emotionally to each other.
    
    
  • There are planned opportunities for key staff to share good practice with staff from other schools.
    
    
  • Senior staff actively promote and facilitate these networking and mentoring opportunities.

The Well-being for Education Return

The Well-being for Education Return is a nationwide project developed and funded by the DfE and the DHSC in partnership with public health England and NHS England. The project included the delivery of two free webinars (links to the webinars are below) that were initially developed by MindEd in conjunction with the Anna Freud Centre. The webinars have been adapted and contain information on local mental health services. The content of the webinars include:-

Webinar 1

• Whole school approach to well-being and mental health.
  
  
• What neuroscience teaches us about how children behave under pressure.
  
  
• What staff can do to nurture well-being and resilience.
  
  
• Principles of psychological first aid.

Webinar 2

• Re-cap on a whole school approach to social and emotional wellbeing.
  
  
• Focus on specific areas, how we identify and support. Areas include information on bereavement and loss, anxiety and low mood and stress and trauma.
  
  
• Staff well-being and an introduction to a group problem based model.
  
  
• Signposting to local support services.