At Meadowbank we work towards positive Mental Health and Well-being for the whole of our school community, adults as well as children and their families. We pursue this aim using both universal, early education opportunities for all in wave 1 and specialised, and targeted approaches within school and through external agency involvement in waves 2 and 3 of our graduated response.
Wave 1, 2 and 3 have more commonly become known as the Universal, Targeted and Personalised offers.
The Meadowbank Wellbeing Pathway summarises the graduated response offered for our whole school community. g
Positive Mental Health and Emotional Well-being describes how we think, feel and relate to ourselves and others and how we interpret the world around us. It affects our capacity to manage, communicate, form and sustain relationships as well as our ability to cope with change and major life events. In addition to promoting positive mental health, the Meadowbank Well-being approach recognises and responds to mental ill health, ensuring that when members of the school community show signs of, or identify as being unhappy, anxious, worried or depressed; there are open channels for them to seek or be offered support, without stigma and with appropriate confidentiality. We actively promote emotional health and well-being and help pupils to understand their feelings as part of our curriculum offer.
High expectations applied with compassionate consistency enable children to feel secure whilst growing as citizens and will continue to be part of their lives into adulthood. At Meadowbank we believe that every person in our community, children and adults, is successful, resourceful, hopeful and caring and these are our expectations. Promoting positive Mental Health and Well-being in all adults and children is instrumental in ensuring that all members of the community are able to flourish and inspire.
Senior Mental Health Lead
The government Green Paper recommends that all schools and colleges have a designated Senior Mental Health Lead (SMHL) by 2025. In 2022 Mrs Jenkins completed training with Leeds Beckett University and is Meadowbank’s Senior Mental Health lead and works with the Inclusion Team to implement a whole school approach to supporting mental health and wellbeing as we creating a school culture in which the whole school community can discuss their mental health and wellbeing openly.
Mental Health Support Team
Meadowbank are proud to be working in partnership with Stockport’s Mental health Support Team, providing help for children who are experiencing low level emotional and behavioural difficulties, such as worry or low mood. They offer various types of therapy, such as cognitive behavioural informed therapy (which helps to positively change thoughts and behaviour), counselling and sport or art-based therapy as well as supporting the Inclusion Team to implement a whole school approach to supporting mental health and wellbeing . Pennine Care run the service in partnership with Beacon Counselling and our mental health support practitioner is in school one day each week. If you think this is something your child could benefit from, speak to their class teacher about the referral process.
https://www.penninecare.nhs.uk/stockportmhst
Turn the Page Counselling
From time-to-time, students prefer to discuss any worries they have with adults that are a step back from family and teachers. With this in mind, all our children have the opportunity to use a ‘drop in’ self-referral service with a trained counsellor from Turn the Page Counselling service to discuss any worries or concerns they may be having. Turn the Page Counselling has worked in schools for over 13 years running this sort of approach alongside offering 1-1 counselling sessions. A counsellor from Turn the Page is in school one day each week.
Further Support
As needed, we work with external agencies to ensure that children are offered appropriate support as detailed in our Wellbeing Pathway. If you have a concern please speak to your child’s class teacher.
Signposting families to professionals who are best placed to offer advice in each individual circumstance is an important part of this work. The following link contains details of many external agencies who are able to support our families.
Meadowbank Social Emotional, Mental Health and Wellbeing Signposting (padlet.com)
Meadowbank Well-Being Pathway
