Published on: October 26, 2022
Over a hundred school and college professionals are now able to access regular follow up support as part of a comprehensive package of Senior Mental Health Lead training from Compass Positive Effect.
Our learners are offered ongoing support following the two day course which is fully DfE funded and CPD accredited. The course builds on the Compass charity’s decades of experience in children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
Rose Kearns, Compass’s Business Development Assistant Director who has been heavily involved throughout the development of this course, said: “We have significant knowledge and experience we want to share and we believe it takes at least two days to do that. We understand that attendees will go back to school and new queries and issues will arise, so we have created an ongoing support system.
“Our charitable ethos means we wish to fully support as many children and young people as possible with their mental health and wellbeing while safeguarding the wellbeing of those who provide that support.”
Rose Kearns
Compass delivers a number of services, such as Compass GO…, Compass Be, West and Central Lancashire MHSTs, and Compass Phoenix in North Yorkshire that support the development of whole school approaches and provide interventions to pupils with low to moderate mental health needs.
Adam Billson, of Billson Consulting, who helped devise the course with Compass practitioners, said: “For me, it’s fantastic that this package comes from a charitable organisation – a national charity that is truly interested in children and young people’s mental health and well-being.
“That is their core purpose, their overarching aim.”
“We know it’s successful – the feedback has been absolutely fantastic and it builds on everything that we already do in terms of the delivery of services and the information and relationships built over many years now.
Adam said: “The training pulls together a really sound theoretical base alongside the practical experiences of the Compass delivery.”
“You know, there’s nothing better than actually having that real world experience through the school nursing services that Compass deliver, through the mental health support team services that Compass deliver… All of those interactions, all of those conversations with young people, with educational settings with other health professionals all gets drawn upon to go into the content of this course.
Adam Billson
The course, which can be online or in person is held for small cohorts so all participants have time to be heard. It is followed up by a one to one meeting with trainer. There is a termly “Community in Practice” webinar in which course attendees can discuss issues openly with other professionals from different schools and learn from each other. And then there is also an online forum for ad-hoc discussion.
The course includes an audit of attendees’ educations settings progress in the Whole School Approach to Mental Health and Wellbeing. It includes action planning to create a structure for further progress.
“Really good tips”
Adam said: “A lot of professionals already have an idea about action planning but there’s some really good tips in there. The purpose of the two days is to talk through and discuss and explore the eight principles of the whole school approach.
“The fact that you’ve got two whole days of protected time to sit down in small groups and have a real in-depth conversation around each of these principles and how the learning can be applied to your setting is really, really important.”
Adam Billson
A personalised, comprehensive package
And Adam added: “I think setting the expectation that this is a journey. It’s about adapting the process, as much as the theory and the practice, to your setting so alongside the course being personalised it’s really comprehensive, it is flexible and it’s going to meet your needs.”
Success this term
So far this term, 60 Senior Mental Health Leads have booked a place on our DfE course, with delegates coming to us from 27 areas of the UK.
mental health , MHSTs , Senior Mental Health Lead , training