School has a passion for wellbeing

Homewood School and Sixth Form Centre has been nominated for a wellbeing award.

The wellbeing of both staff and students at the school is central to their ethos, with a large pastoral team dedicated to ensuring the welfare of their students. An assistant Head of Community works with students who are struggling to manage their behaviour in school by identifying the underlying causes of their seen behaviour.

They work together to produce an individual support plan for each student, and liaise with family liaison officers and community coordinators to improve the well-being of each student. Homewood school also has an internal inclusion team who meet weekly with community teams to discuss any student who is struggling and needs extra support. The school’s LIFE (Learning Is For Everyone) centre, a place where students who are not managing their behaviour well go for a ‘reset’, and their SEN Hub, fully equipped with a nurture room, a sensory room and a well-being room for students to use, is an asset to the school. The school has its own dedicated counsellor on site for four days a week as well as an emotional well-being team who come into school twice a week.

This academic year, staff from the Diana Trust led training sessions on anti-racism, anti-homophobia, anti-biphobia and anti-transphobia at the school, where students have created an awareness video and written an assembly on these important issues. Students have also been involved in writing a PSHE lesson and in the review of their own school policies, and continue to plan more events in school to raise awareness and give support to other students on various issues young people face. The school is currently taking part in a research project called “More Good Days at School”, where staff are receiving trauma-informed training and are looking to integrate this practice into their approach.

The Kent Mental Well-being awards is an annual event designed to showcase the people, organisations and initiatives that help us cope with life. The event’s three themes are: kindness and compassion; wellbeing; mental health. Whether it is in your school, business, community or family, so many of us have been lucky to have people and organisations with ideas, tips and tactics to help us cope. It is time to celebrate those mental health and wellbeing champions in our community and share this best practice.

The awards will be staged in October by the mental health charity Mind in Bexley and East Kent in collaboration with a range of well-being and mental health organisations. Nominations can be linked to a simple act of kindness that lifted the spirits, a business that has improved staff well-being, through to a targeted initiative delivered by a charity or statutory organisation to support a mental health issue.

The event is sponsored by Kent County Council, Kent Community Foundation, ADM Computing, GrainLNG – National Grid, Medway Council, Optyma Security, Wave Community Bank, Ble Global, Cactus Graphics and CommunityAid.

Submit nominations at www.kentmentalwellbeingawards.org.uk  For awards news follow @KentMWAwards on Facebook and X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.