Introduction

Compass BUZZ is an innovative project which works with the whole school workforce and other key partners in schools across North Yorkshire to increase the skills, confidence and competence of staff dealing with emotional and mental health concerns.

This guidance has been written by Compass BUZZ to support primary schools in North Yorkshire in setting up a pupil wellbeing champion programme. The aim of this document is to give school staff a starting point when setting up their own champion programme and to help staff reflect on the best way of going about this. To go along with this staff guidance, Compass BUZZ have also developed a training workshop to be delivered to students in schools so that they can become skilled champions who promote wellbeing in their school community.

We believe that adults working together with pupils to build awareness of mental health and wellbeing and reduce stigma will contribute towards taking a whole school approach. ‘Promoting Children and Young People’s Emotional Health and Wellbeing’ by Public Health England (2015), sets out eight key principles that head teachers can embed in order to promote a whole school approach to emotional health and wellbeing. These are the eight areas in which schools need to take action to embed whole school cultural change around mental health and wellbeing and they are as below:

An ethos and environment that promotes respect and values diversity Curriculum teaching and learning to promote resilience and support social and emotional learning

Targeted support and appropriate referral Leadership and management that supports and champions efforts to promote emotional health and wellbeing Enabling student voice to influence decisions

Staff development to support their own wellbeing and that of students

Working with parents/carers Identifying need and monitoring impact of interventions

We believe that adults working together with pupils to build awareness will contribute towards taking a whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing

Having a pupil wellbeing champion programme operating in your school has links to multiple principles (depending on how your programme works). For example, a successful programme will raise the profile of the pupil voice, and curriculum, teaching and learning may also be impacted if pupils peer teach wellbeing topics.

A successful pupil wellbeing champion programme is just one part of working towards a whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing. To ensure you embed this fully, it is important that your wellbeing champion programme is one of a number of initiatives, changes and efforts across school, and that these are each supported and maintained.