Health and wellbeing resources for headteachers and school staff

Devon County Council sent this bulletin at 09-07-2020 02:29 PM BST

Health and wellbeing resources for headteachers and school staff, including those working from home

Welcome to Devon County Council's special health and wellbeing e-bulletin for school employees, designed to shine a light on the resources and options available to you while working through the pandemic. We encourage you to take some time out to think about and manage your own health and wellbeing.

There are some specific resources for headteachers and school staff that we would like to draw your attention to. In addition, if headteachers would like to access any specific further support please contact HR One on 01395 385555 or alternatively you can email: hrdirect-mailbox@devon.gov.uk

Education Support is a charity dedicated to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of education staff. They have seven tips for headteachers coping with the coronavirus pandemic.

Support highlighted in this newsletter is modelled on the 5 ways to wellbeing; these are things that you can do in your everyday life to help YOU feel good, and can be remembered by CLANG – Connect, (keep) Learning, (be) Active, (take) Notice, Give.

Take Notice (mindfulness)

Paying more attention to the present moment can improve your mental wellbeing. This includes your thoughts and feelings, your body and the world around you.

Three-minute mindfulness activity... are you sitting comfortably?

Leatham Green is the director and founder of Mindful HR, and asks us to take a breath in and out and follow this three-minute meditation and mindfulness activity to relax. It really does work!

All it takes is 10 mindful minutes | Andy Puddicombe

When is the last time you did absolutely nothing for 10 whole minutes?

Not texting, talking or even thinking? Mindfulness expert Andy Puddicombe describes the transformative power of doing just that: Refreshing your mind for 10 minutes a day, simply by being mindful and experiencing the present moment.

If you can, take your daily exercise out in the fresh air, and when you are working please do take regular, short breaks. Or workout at home through websites like Les Mills on demand.

How has your mood been over the last few weeks?

Assess your current mood using the NHS mood self-assessment to help you better understand how you've been feeling.

If you become aware that you would like to talk about how you are feeling mental health helplines can help.

Every Mind Matters

The NHS Every Mind Matters website has lots of advice to help you take care of your mental health and wellbeing, including tips to help if you're worried about coronavirus (COVID-19); if you’re looking after children and young people and if you're working from home, as well as general ways to help cope during the lockdown.

You can also start your own online action plan called 'Your Mind Plan' to help you take simple, practical steps to look after your mental wellbeing by dealing with stress, boosting your mood and feeling on top of things.

Give to others

Do something nice for a friend, or a stranger. Thank someone. Smile. Look out, as well as in. Seeing yourself, and your happiness, linked to the wider community can be incredibly rewarding and creates connections with the people around you.

Do you want to do something to show you care? There are lots of opportunities for you to make a difference to people’s lives.

Acts of kindness make the world a happier place

Research suggests that acts of giving and kindness can help improve your mental wellbeing. It can help reduce stress and improve your emotional wellbeing; in short, doing good does you good.

Get involved with random acts of kindness.

Three Good Things is an exercise that has been associated with increased levels of happiness and wellbeing.

Here's how you do it...

Each night before you go to sleep:

think of three good things that happened today - perhaps something that has made you proud, happy, grateful
write them down
reflect on your role in why they happened.

TED Talk: The Magic of Kindness

Orly Wahba promotes kindness in every form with this inspirational and moving 10-minute talk.

She is a gifted magician in the field of kindness and as a school teacher who wanted to make a real difference in her students’ lives she started a wave of pay-it-forward kindness.

Gratitude - short clip from Brené Brown

Click to watch 'Gratitude' - a short clip from Brené Brown

Dr Brené Brown is a research professor who has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. In this short video, she talks about the relationship between joy and gratitude and offers a few tips on how to cultivate more joy in your own life.

Summer 2020

Connect with other people

Good relationships are important for your mental wellbeing.

Able Futures – Access work mental health support to help you enjoy more good days.
Listening Ear – Off-load to someone outside of your family, friends and colleagues. Make use of a one-off, one-hour remote session using Teams or Skype. If this is something that you would like to make use of please send an email to leadership learning-mailbox.
Intercom Trust – A counselling service and helpline for lesbian, gay, bi or trans+ people.
Ourfrontline – A new national resource partnership to support those under most pressure.

In addition, for those of you who are still restricted to working from home, these are helpful booklets for you to look at:

Balancing effective remote working and a busy home-life a guide to working at home while your children are around, by Cafcass
Looking up and looking after ourselves self coaching tools, by Sandra Whiles
Resilience at home 10 top tips from Norfolk County Council
Thriving through isolation workbook by mindset.co.uk
Wellbeing guide for staff working in schools and trusts by NEOST.

Learn new skills

Research shows that learning new skills can also improve your mental wellbeing.

Where capacity allows, use some time to focus on your continuing professional development, explore learning and development opportunities through:

Free 10-day happiness coaching course

Coaching is a powerful approach to helping people to develop and work through challenges in life.

It is designed for challenging times, based on the latest research from positive psychology, neuroscience, and behavioural science.

If this sounds interesting then head on over to 10daysofhappiness and prepare yourself to become happier.

Remember, every single day we are making a difference to the lives of others.

Be physically active

Being active is great for your physical health and fitness

These easy low-impact exercises from the NHS can improve your health and fitness without harming your joints.

There are also some great ideas on ways to stay active at your desk.

Active Devon has some brilliant ideas on how we can get moving more and resources too.

While working at home, we are seeing many people work longer hours and sitting still for a significant amount of the day.

Taking regular breaks away from your desk is really helpful not only for your concentration, attention and mental wellbeing but it will also help to avoid any physical injuries.

Are you getting enough sleep?

If you're having sleep problems, there are simple steps you can take to ease those restless nights. Find out how to get to sleep and how to sleep better.

Top tips to sleep better

Take the NHS quiz

Watch the NHS sleep video: