Even before the pandemic those of us working across schools had identified better health and wellbeing as a priority for staff. 

But the last two years have hugely exacerbated this issue, which has led to rising mental health issues among school staff across the country - a point the Tes wellbeing survey underlined when it was released only last week.

These findings cause real concern for all of us who work in HR across the education sector, whether that is in multi-academy trusts or offering local authority support - not least because they only add to what we know is a growing issue across the industry.

Indeed, studies, such as this one by the Kaiser Family Foundation in the US, have shown that essential workers - as all of us in schools are - were far more likely to report suicidal thoughts during the pandemic. Although fortunately, suicide rates have not increased due to Covid, we are receiving more queries coming through from our staff and providing more support as a result. 

The need for expertise

These most often do not relate to themselves but are rather concerns about their friends and families. 

While this may underline the severity of the situation, as staff have nowhere else to go, it also highlights the importance of having this expertise in place. 

Being able to provide this support for staff, and ensuring you have a culture where staff feel comfortable asking for help, creates a positive impact even outside of school.

For those of us working in HR, our role then is to make sure school leaders have the tools they need to support their staff.  

While in some cases HR professionals can come to meetings in schools, support is often via informal routes such as a quiet chat in between lessons. 

HR can support formally through training, but we also act as a soundboard for headteachers who might notice a staff member struggling and ask us what support the trust can offer. 

Boosting all staff skills

However, this isn’t just the responsibility of leaders - if we are to provide good mental health support it needs to be embedded across a school or trust.

We know the benefits of Mental Health First Aiders - individuals who are trained to spot the signs of mental health issues and have the skills to support someone in crisis. 

They help raise awareness around mental health literacy, reduce stigma around mental health and promote early intervention, which enables better recovery.

Given the huge importance of this work, we funded two members of the HR team to become accredited instructors with Mental Health England.

They can deliver the training staff need to learn about incredibly tough topics including trauma and suicide, and how to support others through this. 

We’ve recently launched a programme to train up a team of these volunteers, with the aim of having a trained First Aider in post at each of our schools by the end of this academic year. 

Clear policies

Since December we’ve had 22 staff complete their training and the feedback has been incredibly positive as it means staff know there is more support available to them and that we are investing in this vital area.

Furthermore, we also now provide an employee assistance programme where staff can access all manner of resources, including for mental health concerns, financial difficulties or even guidance on their legal rights. 

This is an external service the trust funds, offering staff the opportunity to access resources, guidance and advice through a 24/7 telephone line and an online portal.

We’ve had the service in place since February 2020 and in the first year, there were 54 calls and over 700 documents accessed through the portal, showing how beneficial our staff find it.

Our trust has also implemented a Managing Absence Policy and a Stress and Wellbeing Policy that provide managers and staff with a clear framework that focuses on a duty of care and encourages early conversation if a member of staff knows they may be off due to mental health reasons. 

We deliver Stress Management training to all headteachers to embed and reinforce the policy and ensure they are clear on the steps they need to take. 

Tracking staff sentiment

Initiatives like these will differ across trusts and authorities but having something similar in place is vital for ensuring your staff are taken care of and, importantly, understand that you’re there to support them rather than as a punitive force. 

Of course, nothing will be able to match the simple fact that listening to your staff is the best way of finding out how they are feeling and whether there are any issues stirring. 

It can be difficult to track the impact of these interventions, but you’ll need to find a means of doing so. 

For us, we recently launched a Health and Wellbeing survey across the Trust to get a sense of how our staff are feeling, with the intention of using the findings from this to identify our key priorities for support and to draw up clear action plans. 

We can also use these results as a baseline for the future as we assess the impact of the work done so far. 

This will also show you how your staff feel about your wider culture and whether they feel able to come forward with any potential issues. 

We believe the key to this is simple, normalising conversations about mental health and being able to effectively listen to our staff so that they feel comfortable in coming forward and asking for help.

Implementing this culture is a key step forward, and is essential to ensuring the emotional and physical wellbeing of your staff. 

Rachel Ridgill is HR director at the David Ross Education Trust

Tes are the official wellbeing parter for Bett 2022. For more information and to register click on the link below: