Successful cross-sector event on supporting wellbeing in schools

A well-attended virtual event focused on supporting the wellbeing and mental health of children and young people in schools took place this month, organised by the Wolfson Centre for Young People’s Mental Health and Together for Children and Young People (T4CYP).

The online session, Wellbeing in Schools: sharing learning to support children and young people, took place on 1 February 2022 and was chaired by Sally Holland, Children’s Commissioner for Wales, and Carol Shillabeer, head of T4CYP.

The event also featured the work of artist Emma Paxton from Imagistical who drew live throughout the afternoon and turned the discussion into a hand-drawn digital poster of engaging visuals.

The Wolfson Centre and T4CYP teams were joined by over 150 attendees. The afternoon featured short academic talks on mental health interventions in schools and school systems from Professor Frances Rice and Professor Graham Moore, as well as information from Dr Elizabeth Gregory on the Nurturing, Empowering, Safe, Trusting (NEST) Framework and best practice examples from Dr Gemma Burns and Dr James Cording of the Gwent Whole School Approach Implementation team.

Professor Frances Rice, co-director of the Wolfson Centre, said: “It was a fantastic afternoon with great cross-sector engagement and discussion on such a timely and important topic: children and young people’s wellbeing in education settings.

“Professor Graham Moore, who co-leads our research on mental health in schools, and I were pleased to contribute research findings on behalf of the Wolfson Centre and it was great to hear attendees’ responses during follow-up lively and interactive conversations.”

Dr Elizabeth Gregory from Together for Children and Young People said: “I was really pleased to introduce the NEST Framework to attendees; a planning tool to help services ensure health and wellbeing is at the heart of everything they do. It was also fantastic to hear from our colleagues Dr Gemma Burns and Dr James Cording who were able to provide excellent, in-depth examples of the framework working in practice in the Gwent area.”

Professor Frances Rice concluded: “It was a real pleasure to collaborate on this event about such an important topic and we look forward to more partnership events in the future.”

The full recording of the event Wellbeing in Schools: sharing learning to support children and young people is now available to view online.