Seckford Education Trust and Springwell School partner with Kooth Work to support employee mental health
Seckford Education Trust and Springwell School have become the latest educational establishments to partner with Kooth Work to support the mental health and wellbeing of employees.
Available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Kooth Work will provide access to online counselling and wellbeing support when and where they need it.
Seckford Education Trust is a multi-academy trust running primary and secondary schools across Suffolk and East Anglia. Southampton based Springwell is a primary school for children aged 4 – 11 years with complex learning difficulties. Both selected Kooth Work for its holistic approach to mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.
Kooth Work provides employees with a safe, confidential and welcoming place to access early intervention and non-judgemental mental health support. For both organisations this includes all teachers, teaching support staff, on-site staff and governors. For Springwell School, Kooth Work will also be made available to the partners of employees or one family member aged 18+.
Kooth Work offers a digital mental health platform that allows employees to book one-to-one text based sessions with experienced counsellors and wellbeing practitioners via anonymous chat. They are accessible without waitlists or thresholds to meet. In addition, Kooth Work provides an easily accessible, fully safeguarded and pre-moderated community with a library of peer and professional created content.
Kooth Work’s Flourish Mental Health Check runs alongside the award-winning anonymous digital mental health platform. It is a benchmark tool that, unlike others, is based on the ‘whole self’, and recognises that home life and past experiences play an important part in people’s wellbeing at work.
The anonymous insights garnered from the Flourish Mental Health Check will help Seckford Education Trust, and Springwell School identify priority issues, ensuring that they invest in the right initiatives, as well as developing and implementing new policies, practises and support programmes, that meet the needs of all staff. This will aid in the creation of a mentally healthy workplace where everyone can flourish and no one is left behind.
Kooth Work will help Seckford Education Trust, and Springwell School with the retention and recruitment of new staff, positioning both as an ‘employee of choice’.
Dr Lynne Green, Chief Clinical Office at Kooth Work, commented:
“Seckford Education Trust and Springwell School are leading the way in the education sector with their mission to promote positive mental health and emotional wellbeing within their schools. It’s not often easy for those working in the education sector – be it teaching or support staff – to ask for help and reach out for support with mental health and wellbeing concerns at work. This is why it is extremely important for multi-academy trusts and schools to both check-in and proactively support the mental wellbeing of their workforce.
“Digital mental health services can help to reduce the stigma often associated with mental health. Our Kooth Work offering does this by providing people with a choice of safe and confidential options that match with their individual needs, as well as being accessible in a way they feel comfortable with. We are looking forward to supporting everyone in their community of schools; from teachers, staff and governors, to pupils and their families with any mental health concern. However big or small the issue, Kooth Work is available to help when and where it is needed”
Mark Barrow, CEO at Seckford Education Trust explained:
“At Seckford Education Trust, we understand the pressures that our talented team faces both in and outside of work. To ensure all staff have access to the support they need, we wanted to partner with a mental health and wellbeing service that truly understood their needs. Kooth does this and will enable us to make sure that our staff members have the tools at their fingertips to help them maintain good mental health. We encourage everyone across our community to sign up to the service.”
Lisa Needham and Maria Burrows, Co-Headteachers at Springwell School added:
“Our decision to commission Kooth Work at Springwell School is based on our underlying premise that a positive, caring ethos and environment, where staff are listened to and feel supported and appreciated will have a significant impact on the wellbeing of staff and, most importantly, the children. We recognise that, when wellbeing and mental health are prioritised school staff have the potential to flourish and Kooth Work provides a safe and secure means of accessing support from a professional team of qualified counsellors.”
Kooth Work is the only digital mental health provider to hold a UK-wide accreditation from the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). It is available to Seckford Education Trust and Springwell School employees immediately, once registered, they can access the platform via any internet-connected device such as a laptop, smartphone or tablet.
