At Bishopton, we pride ourselves on our mission to care for the whole child. We believe that a child’s success, comes not only from their academic achievements but also through the demonstration of resilience and good mental health. We understand, that some of our children have not had the best relationship with education in the past, so we strive to rebuild their confidence and love of learning through therapeutic intervention, which helps restore the child’s emotional well-being and allows them to live in the here and now.
We are able to offer a range of therapeutic interventions to pupils that access Bishopton. These include:
(aids a child to process his or her feelings through drawing)
(resilience building and self-soothing strategies)
(to help pupils social, emotional, and cognitive functioning)
(through one to one sessions and sharing circles)
We also strive to be a good place to work where staff feel valued and their emotional well-being is a priority.
We recognise that a well staff means a better outcome for our students. Staff have access to free confidential counselling services.
We recognise that well-being is vitally important for the staff too and place it at the heart of everything that we do.
From a strategic point of view, we have our annual School Development Plan and our longer-term strategic priorities. We focus everything on outcomes we value, rather than solely focusing on the value of outcomes. The outcomes we value are:
We firmly believe that in order to have a school environment where young people feel loved, valued, safe and inspired it is vital that staff, are happy and secure in their roles therefore the school has a detailed staff wellbeing policy that is based on regular staff surveys. Staff morale is a priority and there are several initiatives we employ to ensure that staff morale remains high, even during times where we are feeling pressure.
We have recently developed a Staff Well-being group dedicated to receiving extra training and becoming Mental Health Champions.
For more information about this please contact the school and ask for Mrs Dack.
Qwell is a fantastic service offering FREE mental health and well-being support by BACP accredited practitioners to teachers and TAs in the North East. Adults accessing Qwell can do so without the waiting lists or thresholds often associated with traditional mental health services. You can join online peer support communities, access self-help materials or engage in drop-in or booked one to one online chat sessions with experienced counsellors (6 sessions, free of charge). Qwell works in partnership with traditional community health providers and provides links and pathways to traditional and specialist face-to-face services.
It is important to mention that Stockton Borough Council HR services are very supportive of this service, however anything you share with HR will be at your own discretion – Qwell are a completely confidential service and therefore will not share your session notes/data captured re mental health on your behalf.
Qwell can be accessed in addition to, not instead of, any counselling you may receive as part of HR support.
The below link lists all the mental health support services.
https://www.time-to-change.org.uk/mental-health-and-stigma/help-and-support
