Health and wellbeing: Meet Liverpool's 'health and wellbeing champions'

Memories of being in lockdown may be fading, but many young families are still dealing with the pandemic’s impact, which is now being exacerbated by the cost-of-living crisis.

Public Health Liverpool identified that families with children aged under five years old needed support with their emotional health and wellbeing, and approached SIL (formerly School Improvement Liverpool) to develop training for early years practitioners to equip them with the skills and resources to help children, their parents and, importantly, themselves.

‘One of the most troubling legacies of the pandemic is the impact it had on the youngest members of our communities,’ says advanced public health practitioner for mental health Jayne Cook. ‘There is clear evidence that babies born into the pandemic were massively limited in their opportunities to experience the play, exploration and socialisation that are so crucial to their early development.

‘This happened in parallel with families encountering unprecedented levels of stress resulting from complex challenges like job insecurity, reduced income, social isolation, bereavement and increased caring responsibilities – and there is now a whole generation of families with children under five still dealing with the impact this has had.’

In response, SIL devised the Early Years Emotional Health and Wellbeing Award alongside health and education partners. The training was launched in September 2022 and has now been completed by more than 80 practitioners from early years settings across Liverpool. The programme’s sustainable approach to nurturing the wellbeing of children through the adults who care for them led to it winning the Health and Well-being Award at last year’s Nursery World Awards.

Those who complete the programme, which is funded by the Public Health Department at Liverpool City Council, are known as ‘Emotional Health and Wellbeing Champions’. Practitioners can go on to achieve NCFE CACHE’s Level 4 Award in Early Years Emotional Wellbeing, a qualification that SIL helped to develop.

RIGHT FROM THE START

SIL early years quality improvement officer and programme lead Sally Baumber calls the award a ‘three-pronged approach’ for children, parents and staff. ‘If our youngest children don’t have stable foundations and if we’re not looking after their emotional wellbeing then how are we going to develop the rest of them? It’s got to be right from the start, so we need to look at who is looking after them and support the emotional health and wellbeing of their parents and the staff working in the settings that support them,’ she explains.

The award enables ‘champions’ to be confident in:

• Practical methods to support and promote positive emotional wellbeing.
• Understanding the influence families and practitioners have on children’s emotional wellbeing and how to promote the importance of supportive practice.
• Creating and implementing emotional wellbeing action plans for children, families and staff to improve outcomes for all three key groups.
• How to best engage and work with families to make a positive impact in their lives.
• Having the knowledge of how and when it is appropriate to signpost individuals to national and local support services and to other professionals within the sector, with guest speakers from organisations in Liverpool – including housing support, perinatal mental health care and food banks – sharing their services and advising on how and when to refer to them.

To gain the award, practitioners attend five full days of training which are spread over ten weeks. This enables them to digest what they have learned, consider the changes that they want to implement in their settings and compile action plans (see Case studies).

‘When developing the course, we felt it was important for delegates to write action plans and share them with the staff in their settings so that there is more chance that change is embedded and people get on board with it,’ explains Baumber.

‘We did audits with the first two cohorts and I can see from follow-up visits that there has been real change in the environments, in staff and their practice.’

This has been reflected in feedback from Ofsted inspections that have commented on how children’s emotional needs are well supported, and staff saying they feel that their personal wellbeing is being looked after.

SIL is now rolling out training for people who would like to deliver the programme, with the hope that it will be delivered in other areas ofthe country and empower more early years practitioners to make a difference to the wellbeing of the children and families in their settings, along with their staff teams.

CASE STUDIES: four-day week and counselling

‘Following the pandemic, I felt that staff mental health and wellbeing was low and that I should do something to upskill myself and improve this, because whatever we do impacts on the children we care for,’ says Playtots area manager Kayleigh Whitehead.

‘I gained a lot from the training which gave us time to focus on ourselves too, not just on how we could improve things for the children and families. It was good to meet colleagues and discuss how we’re facing the same situations. We also had talks from support services about what help is out there that we can signpost to.

‘The training led to us developing an action plan that focuses on staff mental health and wellbeing which we regularly review. Each month we write positive comments about staff members which are shared on a display board and we hold staff social activities like quizzes.

‘Perhaps the biggest change has been reviewing staff work-life balance. We have changed working patterns so staff work a four-day week, instead of five, for the same wage. This allows them to have a day for appointments and jobs and have the weekend for themselves, which gives a break from what is a stressful job. They return to work better able to focus and tune in to children’s emotions. It’s actually helped us to retain staff because they understand that they’re important to us.

‘We observe children using the Sustained Shared Thinking and Emotional Wellbeing (SSTEW) scales, and their scores have improved. We see a positive difference in children’s play, interactions, social skills and behaviour.’

Playmates Nursery at Centre 56

‘Writing action plans for staff, children and parents was a good opportunity to collaborate and reflect on what we were doing and how we could improve it,’ says Playmates children’s support manager Paula Graves. ‘For example, we have embedded sharing affirmations with children each day to give them positive messages and have developed a sensory circuit in the garden for our children with special educational needs so they can regulate themselves when they feel overwhelmed.

‘We know that if parental wellbeing is good then it impacts on their children. We have introduced parent workshops, which are nice and social, like cookery courses, upcycling and budget planning. It is good for people to come together again. We’ve also introduced Padlet [a virtual post board] where we share information of outside services available which both staff and parents can access

‘For the staff, we have revamped the staff room and introduced a termly budget to be spent on activities to make them feel good. We have an outside company that can provide counselling sessions for staff and have incorporated talking about emotional health and wellbeing into staff meetings.’

FURTHER INFORMATION

• https://www.schoolimprovementliverpool.co.uk