Education workforce – health and wellbeing support: report findings and recommendations

Key Findings

4.1 Data informing strategic planning.

The data gathered, and displayed in Figures 3 and 4, demonstrates the range of information sources being used to develop HWB approaches to supporting education practitioners.

All LAs have well established staff consultation activities where practitioners can provide feedback through surveys. Furthermore, of the LAs who engaged, 38% have education service specific survey models being used to gather more detail about staff HWB in the context of education.

In identifying these differences between LAs, understanding of the rationale for a LA implementing a service specific survey alongside engaging with an organisational wide approach was sought. An illustration of practice from Fife, outlines their approach to using education specific feedback, through their 'Staffwise' survey, to inform HWB planning for their practitioners. This illustration describes their survey method collecting information at 'Service and Establishment' level. It enables Fife to identify improvement areas across the education directorate 'but also in each educational setting and team.' This approach taken in Fife has been implemented to inform and update HWB strategy but also to allow teams and schools to develop their own plans, using their own data, to support their staff groups.

Illustration 1.

Fife's approach to using data from a well-established staff HWB survey to inform planning.

The main objectives were to understand, from our staff's perspective, the issues that were affecting their wellbeing, but also to demonstrate to staff that we are listening, and we value their feedback.

Ultimately, we want to continue to improve our approaches to ensuring we have a happy and healthy workforce, and their involvement in that process is key.

Our education service has conducted biennial surveys of staff welfare across the service for a number of years. Our survey instrument, Staffwise, gathers feedback from staff on variables that, if not managed effectively, can increase the risk of workplace stress. The survey instrument also collects information at Service and Establishment level meaning that we can identify key improvement priorities across the Directorate but also in each educational setting and team.

This is a well-established model, and we have a high participation rate in the service which provides us with a rich source of data. We are also committed to being proactive as opposed to reacting to a specific set of circumstances. We, therefore, identify key themes in the data during each cycle but also compare data to previous years in order to identify key trends over time.

Whilst this approach does provide evidence of education service surveys perhaps providing more specific data, 62% of LA's consider their own organisations corporate survey model to be an appropriate means of collecting feedback from staff.

The evidence also suggests that LAs are demonstrating versatility in terms of accessing other sources of information, which contribute to their strategic approaches, whether this be across the wider organisation or in education services. More than half of LA nominated representatives discussed key focus group activities with specific staff groups as being important in understanding the challenges and, therefore, providing a rich source of information for HWB planning. These focus groups were either as a follow up to a survey cycle with a view to deepening the understanding of the survey data, or they were organised in isolation with the objective of discussing key HWB topics or challenges.

From the other sources of information being used to inform strategy, a common thread was the importance of collaborative approaches. Despite some LAs having education-specific methods, there is evidence of effective collaboration between education and corporate HR colleagues, specifically in relation to identifying themes from other data sources including absence management systems, employee apps and stress risk assessment tools. The collaborative partners also identified data from TU representatives as well as feedback and consultation with EP Services as being particularly important to HWB strategic planning.

According to the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) the process of staff consultation and gathering feedback from employees creates a more positive and supportive working environment, which has a direct impact on the culture of the organisation.^[10] A range of data sources is useful, and it is required to enable LAs to deliver improvements which are identified by staff. However, as identified by the current academic literature and organisations such the HSE, the process of employee consultation will only have a positive impact on the culture of the workplace when the feedback is shown to be valued and acted upon through approaches that are visible to staff.

Organisational Structure

As further information was gathered on the strategic approaches of LAs, differences in the structure of those organisations and their education services were also identified. One of those differences was the placing of key staff groups, who in some LAs were part of an education service but were not in other LA's and may have been placed in a different directorate. An example of this would be Community Learning and Development (CLD) colleagues.

While not initially setting out to explore organisational structures, due to the variance nationally, a deeper understanding of education service structures was required to determine if there was a link between structure and the subsequent strategic approaches to education workforce HWB.

72% of LA's who engaged with the research have a nominated lead officer, or a small team, whose remit includes staff wellbeing for education practitioners. Figure 2 provides a breakdown of the roles of the nominated LA representatives. Whilst not all those colleagues could be considered a defined HWB lead for education, the figure does illustrate the type of posts in LA's where there may be specific remits that include education workforce HWB.

This area would require further research, however, from the interviews with representatives, the most common roles with a responsibility for staff HWB tended to be in education management in the form of, Education Managers, Education Officers, Quality Improvement Managers and Quality Improvement Officers. Those colleagues, on occasion, were found to be line managing a small team of staff contributing to workforce HWB outcomes.

This finding should be considered in the context of data informing strategic approaches. Despite 72% of LA's having a defined HWB lead for education, only 34% of LA's had a specific education HWB strategy which included defined priorities to support their staff.

38% of LAs have education staff surveys. Therefore, there may be greater opportunities to develop well informed strategic approaches for education staff in response to service specific data collected.

It should be noted that for the remaining 62% of LAs, feedback suggested that the corporate staff survey, alongside other workforce data sources, provided the necessary level of information to inform workforce HWB planning, which included education services.

4.2 Collaboration

The importance of working collaboratively with key partners to address workplace challenges and support staff wellbeing was identified as a recurring theme through the interviews with nominated LA representatives.

In gaining insights into the different structures of LAs and their strategic approaches to staff HWB, the partnerships being developed to make the best use of all data sources to inform staff HWB approaches began to be identified. In investigating this further, the partnerships identified in LA's were categorised as internal and external partnerships.

Internal Partnerships

Although not exhaustive, during the discussions with nominated LA representatives, there were strong indications of the significance of HR services, EP Services and TU representatives to education workforce HWB.

Nationally, HR Services were highlighted as an important partnership for education services with a view to improving staff HWB. To understand this further, the work of the Society of Personnel and Development Scotland (SPDS) Wellbeing Portfolio Group was explored. This group consists of HR professionals across LAs who work collaboratively to discuss a range of absence management and wellbeing related topics, share ideas and guide local approaches. Some of the core purposes of this group include:

• To discuss a range of related indicators, policies and procedures to establish best practice.
• To discuss and agree standard points of reference over relevant indicators to develop a set of core questions to enable benchmarking data to be created.
• To establish a discussion forum to identify early indicators of themes that may need to be addressed in LAs in terms of staff HWB.
• To consider how LAs continue to deal with the recovery from the pandemic.

The SPDS Wellbeing Portfolio Group was referenced by nominated representatives in the discussions with LAs. The information gathered emphasises the value placed on that platform in terms of the key opportunities for reflection and discussion that the group provides HR colleagues. This enables elements of consistency of approach across LAs, whilst acknowledging the need for flexibility to address local need. Learning from others and sharing practice is key to both of those approaches.

An illustration from Glasgow City Council outlines their approach to implementing their organisation's HWB strategy, which aims to develop a 'working environment that prioritises mental health and fosters a culture of wellbeing' for all staff. This is an example of an internal partnership where the corporate HR service are working together with their education service to build positive relationships, improve communication and ensure access to a range of LA resources and supports. Furthermore, the illustration reflects on the impact of this proactive approach and shares evidence of increased awareness of resources, a positive shift in culture and improvements to early access to interventions.

Illustration 2.

Glasgow City Council's partnership approach to improving wellbeing and workplace culture.

Our approach is required to create a work environment that prioritises mental health and fosters a culture of wellbeing. In achieving this we place a great deal of importance on building strong, trusted relationships with our headteachers to ensure our staff are encouraged to be open and feel supported with their mental health and wellbeing.

The main aims include raising awareness and reducing stigma around mental health in the workplace, providing resources and support mechanisms to managers and staff who are dealing with mental health challenges and absences at an early stage, implementing preventative measures to promote overall wellbeing and fostering a culture that encourages open communication to destigmatise mental health in the workplace.

There has been a positive shift in the workplace culture, with employees feeling more comfortable discussing mental health concerns openly which is allowing intervention to be accessed early and the potential to support recovery with targeted resources. The emotional labour that comes with managing mental health and wellbeing is acknowledged and it is important that staff are encouraged to "look after" both themselves as well as their staff.

Next steps include reigniting the Mentally Healthy Workplace training for Managers and for this to be made available to all Heads of Establishments and their Deputes (Schools and Early Years and Childcare), continued collaboration with corporate resources for ongoing support and resources and the expansion of digital learning for managers to tap into to ensure their knowledge, confidence and handling of sensitive employee concerns.

Glasgow was just one LA that was working to develop a culture that was committed to identifying and breaking cycles of surface level change. Using collaborative, person centred approaches based on information gathered was identified by several LAs.

TU representatives and EP Services were also identified, alongside HR Services, as being key internal partners to education services. To understand this further, additional insight into TU and EP colleague involvement in education workforce HWB support across LAs was sought.

The Association of Scottish Principal Educational Psychologists (ASPEP) was another ESG collaborative partner and, to understand EP Service contributions nationally, it was important to gain further insight into ASPEPs position on their involvement in education workforce HWB.

ASPEP have representatives on a wide range of national groups focused on supporting national priorities. In recent years, ASPEP members, in collaboration with other EP Services and in partnership with Education Scotland, have carried out and published research, developed guidance and resources to support and promote staff wellbeing.

There is an active joint ASPEP and Scottish Division of Educational Psychologists (SDEP) working group focused on staff wellbeing which is synthesising existing research and best practice in this area, and carrying out action research to identify how EP Services are promoting and supporting positive wellbeing for their own staff. Those colleagues have also supported the development of a range of national initiatives which contain either an implicit or explicit focus on staff wellbeing, including nurturing approaches, the compassionate and connected communities and whole school approaches to promoting mental health in schools.

Engaging with ASPEP has clarified the role of those members nationally and their contribution to national priorities. Furthermore, while there is variance across EP services in LAs, ASPEP has helped identify common strands of work that EP Services are supporting locally:

• Participation in strategic groups overseeing staff wellbeing at whole Council and education service levels. Identifying how staff wellbeing is monitored and reviewed and considering and implementing sustainable support.
• Participation in the development of processes to monitor and review staff wellbeing through consultation survey activities, and mechanisms to support the use of data to inform planning.
• Leading on or contributing to the promotion of pilot activities which have been tests of change for staff wellbeing.

Understanding TU contributions involved engaging with the general secretaries of a number of TUs. Whilst those colleagues are responsible for protecting and advancing the interests of their own members, which includes different staff groups, there were strands of work that were consistent among TUs.

Consultation in different forms and using workforce information to inform LA priorities were identified as being important. The context of some of those discussions was on the topic of staff dealing with distressed behaviours and the impact of those behaviours on staff HWB. This has been discussed at the recent behaviour summits led by the Cabinet Secretary for Education & Skills in Autumn 2023. Furthermore, general secretaries were able to highlight examples of local TU colleagues' contributions to developing policy frameworks and guidance, influencing reporting procedures and developing core approaches to PL, all with the purpose of improving approaches to dealing with distressed behaviour.

There were further examples of consultation outlined and this included the use of TU membership survey data to develop national and local level reports which informed discussions with LA's. Another common theme was TUs supporting LAs to identify challenges that need to be responded to. This could be as part of their placing on a strategic group considering workforce survey data or through the sharing of feedback from their own members with a LA through appropriate platforms.

In addition to consultation and, while there where some differences, other common areas of TU contribution relate to:

• Establishing or participating in steering groups, which includes staff HWB, with the purpose of developing policy and considering SG proposals.
• Signposting to TU and/or LA universal support structures including EAPs and PL.
• External Partnerships

During the discussions with LAs, in addition to internal partnerships, external partners were also identified as supporting education services to progress staff HWB priorities.

Specific national steering groups were referenced by LA's as being supportive in the context of key LA priorities relating to their staff HWB. The most cited example of this was the Education Scotland supported National Safeguarding in education strategic leads network, who established a short life working group to focus on effective supervision for education practitioners. The group consists of Education Scotland and LA colleagues working collaboratively to:

• Discuss the access to effective supervision for education staff recommendation outlined in the National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland^[11]
• Discuss local approaches to planning and implementation of this recommendation.
• Discuss and share learning from supervision pilot activities.
• Share practice and resources developed by LAs relating to relational practice models.
• Prepare a position paper on supervision for consideration by the SG.

This was the most frequently highlighted example, but it is acknowledged that there will be further approaches similar to this where national bodies are working alongside LAs to develop and implement priorities to improve staff HWB. Further research would be required to fully understand the other approaches of this nature that are contributing to national and local outcomes.

LAs working together was another strand of external collaborative work identified. While this can occur alongside national bodies and other organisations, there were also examples highlighted where this was solely LAs working together. The Regional Improvement Collaboratives (RIC) were referenced as being important in facilitating this, but those relationships were not exclusively through those collaborative spaces. The following is not an exhaustive list of examples, but does provide the context for some of this joined up LA work:

• Sharing practice and identifying learning opportunities
• Peer support opportunities
• Approaches and resources to support relational practice models.
• PL delivery and resources
• Induction managers network

Within external partnerships the communication of, and access to, national offers was another theme identified. On most occasions, those references were made when discussing access to specific support structures that were delivered in response to the pandemic. The most frequently referenced offer of this nature was Education Scotland's Supporting Workforce Wellbeing offering which was delivered in partnership with The General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) with elements of the package provided by third sector partners such as Barnardo's and This is Milk. This required LAs and Education Scotland to establish clear communication methods to ensure LA practitioners could confidently engage with workforce HWB structures such as:

• Supervision Spaces
• Coaching (Into, Group and 1:1)
• Stepping Stones

The next area identified which could be categorised as external partnerships is the procurement of a service to support workforce HWB, through third sector organisations and other external bodies. There were examples of LAs extending specific elements of an EAP to ensure that staff had greater access and support to structures such as counselling. This required an additional investment which allowed the existing contract for service to be amended. With the example of counselling this tended to lead to LAs being able to offer more sessions than were initially agreed and promoted through their EAP.

External organisations were also identified to be supporting approaches to relational practice in LAs. In the context of external partnerships, examples were identified where organisations were supporting LAs to fill this space through contract for service arrangements for key groups of staff. The University of Edinburgh Moray House and Place2Be partnership which supports practitioner resilience in student teachers and newly qualified teachers was also discussed. There were references to the work of external partners in some LAs where supportive and reflective spaces were being created through supervision models.

It is acknowledged that there are other organisations who can offer similar services to LAs, however, the example noted here reflects the information that was shared through the identified nominated representatives.

Further research would be required to understand the full contribution of external bodies to LA staff HWB. A number of key examples were identified but there is an awareness that, despite not being highlighted in discussions, other relationships exist with external organisation where services are delivered to support and progress local outcomes, including staff HWB. While this is not an exhaustive list a few examples include universities, colleges and PL providers.

Collaborative approaches in the workplace are well researched and known to contribute towards an organisation becoming more connected, engaged, and efficient, and lead to practitioners feeling more valued and supported. The significance of key collaborative approaches was identified consistently throughout, both in conversation with LAs and ESGs. As LAs begin to encounter further resource challenges, and are faced with greater budget savings, those collaborations will become more important with a view to ensuring sustainable approaches to supporting and improving staff HWB can be delivered.

4.3 Health & Wellbeing Provision

As specific examples of provision to support education workforce HWB in LAs were explored, three broad categories started to emerge in terms of how such provision was being offered.

The concept of a 'Support Continuum' became apparent and Figure 7 outlines the examples of provision shared by the nominated LA representatives and their placing in the Continuum.

Universal

Universal provision refers to HWB support structures and offers that were intended to be accessible to all education staff groups and, in some cases, all LA staff.

The items noted in Figure 7 represent the most frequently discussed examples of provision for all staff.

• EAPs – this refers to the comprehensive employee assistance offers across LAs. During discussions about EAPs, nominated representatives made further references to counselling models, occupational health structures, health screening and physiotherapy arrangements.
• Employee Benefits – this refers to the benefits attached to the employment status of LA staff and can include retail discounts, various reward schemes (e.g., cycle scheme) and cashback reward programmes.
• PL Offers – these were noted separately from other more targeted PL offers, as they were open to all staff. These include examples such as Mental Health Awareness and Improving Approaches to Supporting Wellbeing. They were intended to be for a practitioner to engage in with a view to applying to their own care.
• Guidance and Resources – within this area references were made to self-care approaches and strategies, wellbeing action plans and public health messaging to support HWB.
• Intranets and Information Hubs – the inclusion of these was important as the references made during discussions acknowledged the need for clear and robust methods of communication to ensure staff had an awareness of how they could access key support information and structures.
• Staff Consultation Activities – this refers to staff feeling that they have opportunities to share organisational or service level feedback with a view to influencing issues that are having an impact on how they feel at work.
• Mental Health First Aid Services –examples of these services were found to be offering a listening ear to those who felt speaking with a trained colleague would support their mental health. While these conversations are 1:1 and confidential, these services are open to all education staff and, therefore, universally available in LAs where these models are established.

The universal services to support staff HWB are important as, provided they are communicated clearly, employees are then able to identify the resources and structures that they would find supportive. With this category of support in particular there is a need for the employee to reflect on their own care and take responsibility to engage with their chosen structure at appropriate times.

Additional

While it is important to ensure that there are comprehensive universal offers of HWB support for all staff, there continues to be a requirement for LAs to target specific circumstances or staff groups, where there is a need for more targeted support. Examples of targeted work were identified through discussions with LAs and ESGs and, for the purposes of this report, these structures are categorised as 'Additional.'

• Targeted PL for HTs / Managers –these courses were, and continue to be, established with the objective of providing colleagues who have line management responsibilities with the knowledge, the tools and the confidence to support their staff groups more effectively. A commonly named example of this type of course was the HSE Mentally Healthy Workplaces offer. It is important to note that, while this was a frequently discussed PL option, there are alternatives to this course.
• Targeted PL for key staff groups – this refers to LAs identifying improvement priorities within education where PL was identified as part of the solution to the issue. While there will be many examples of this, in this context, this example of additional provision was most frequently raised when discussing the impact of staff responding to children and young people displaying distressed behaviours. Pupil support and early years practitioners were the most commonly referenced groups.
• Relational Practice Models – this is an area that all LAs are giving thought to in some form and it is widely acknowledged that, if implemented effectively, these models can be valuable in supporting staff HWB. In terms of the examples that can be categorised as additional, the most frequently discussed models were peer support and supervision.
• EP Service Support – with the support of ASPEP, strands of work that are consistently supported by all EP Services nationally were identified. In addition to those areas, EP Services play a key role in providing proactive and responsive support around critical incidents for staff. This requires supporting colleagues who work in different roles within education services.
• Intensive

Intensive support for education workforce HWB was not explored to the same extent as universal and additional provision. Intensive support for staff tends to be focused on preventing absence or supporting a colleague's transition back to work from a period of absence. Therefore, due to the specific set of circumstances that may lead to an absence period for an individual member of staff, and the confidential nature of those incidents, it was not appropriate to discuss this type of provision. Broad examples include adjusting physical working environments or amendments to the duties of the postholder but those, and other examples, will in most cases be informed by working alongside occupational health, HR services and could involve an individual stress risk assessment being completed.

Support Continuum

Through engaging with ESGs, instances where it was felt that the needs of specific groups of staff were not being met through universal provision were identified. It is, therefore, important to consider the bigger picture to ensure inclusivity in the offers developed so that all staff, teaching and non-teaching, can benefit and have access to appropriate support.

Working collaboratively to define the issues, with adequate representation from the different groups of staff, is key to ensuring equitable universal provision. Furthermore, balance should be sought when considering the need and distribution of universal and additional provision to ensure that divisions are not created across the workforce.

Some LAs have developed additional provision to support practitioners in response to particular challenges which may not be experienced universally across education services and, therefore, this provision was targeted. It is crucial for LAs to have comprehensive universal support structures for all staff. The evidence from the discussions is that universal provision, in addition to being responsive to local need through additional provision, is key.

4.4 Professional Learning

PL is a key component in meeting national and service priorities. The data gathered shows that LAs are working to develop PL that both directly and indirectly supports the wellbeing of their workforce. There is an expectation of PL for teaching staff to meet the Professional Standards^[12] and a Support Staff PL Framework^[13] has been more recently developed. It has been important to understand how these opportunities contribute to the wellbeing of the workforce.

The PL identified by respondents was wide in scope and purpose and broadly fell under the following headings.

• PL directly intended to improve the wellbeing of the workforce e.g.,
• wellbeing coaching, mindfulness, vicarious trauma workshops, Stepping Stones.
• PL aimed at increasing the knowledge and skills of those supporting others. Some examples include,
• training in Mental Health First Aid,
• enhanced training for those with children protection responsibilities
• relational practice models built into leadership programmes.
• PL that increases knowledge and skills in meeting the Additional Support Needs of a group of children/young people
• PL that indirectly impacts the wellbeing of practitioners such as,
• peer support networks, focusing on areas of interest with colleagues, professional enquiry, new teacher induction.

Sustainable Approaches to PL

It was found that LAs tended to develop their own sustainable approaches, either independently or via collaboration with EPs, TUs or colleagues in other LAs. These opportunities were often augmented by staff accessing nationally available offerings, such as wellbeing coaching, or by LAs procuring third sector inputs.

This raises considerations around best use of LA resources at a time when competing priorities may be having an impact on availability. Developing local solutions to specific issues within a LA uses collective efficacy to develop targeted and bespoke opportunities for staff closely aligned to improvement planning. It may, however, lead to replication of work in many LAs or specific expertise may not exist and, therefore, approaches that allow for collaboration and the sharing of good practice may be of benefit.

The procurement of offers from partners does allow LAs to access specialised support and some approaches discussed were able to play a role in helping LAs to develop their own offers. Respondents discussed the challenges of continual investment being required to continue work in this way as it often did not translate to embedded systemic practice. This was cited as contributing to cycles of surface level change. This may highlight a need to explore the development of sustainable models that can effectively meet the objectives required by LAs and further exploratory work into the type of supports LAs may require to clearly define the issues they are attempting to improve.

• Developing A Culture of Professional Learning for All

The development of a culture where people can work collaboratively to devise appropriate solutions to well defined needs became apparent through discussion. Within the education sector, considering the key features of the National Model of PL^[14] could support those wishing to develop effective responses, particularly the sections relating to leadership of PL and collaborative approaches. There are also strong links back to the initial findings in this report around how LAs can devise a strategic response with PL a key component of delivering against this strategy.

An illustration of this is Renfrewshire's use of data from counselling to devise PL opportunities for a range of staff to increase staff confidence and skills in supporting children and young people impacted by anxiety.

Illustration 3.

Renfrewshire's Approaches to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) Course

Renfrewshire has used workforce data, through their counselling service, as a method of identifying factors affecting a key group of staff and then used that information to inform their PL.

The education service identified their pupil support staff as requiring additional provision, in the form of specific PL, to provide greater support to those practitioners. This approach to targeted staff training acknowledges that "in order to support the health and wellbeing of children and young people, our key staff around pupil support must be able to provide the best support they can."

Renfrewshire has been exploring the research around the benefits of CBT and introducing staff to basic skills and knowledge in this area. This aimed to "provide confidence and understanding of basic approaches to CBT and demonstrate how a CBT based approach can enhance our work with children and young people."

To further support staff, resources have been developed by the Health and Wellbeing Development Officer to provide an information framework around CBT methodology along with sharing information with parents regarding anxiety.

The positive course evaluations have ensured this course has been further developed with a view to ensuring this becomes sustainable in the LA.

While teaching staff have GTCS Professional Standards to support a lifelong learning culture, these may not be appropriate for the whole education workforce. Ensuring PL to support HWB is equitable needs careful consideration and planning at a local level to take into account the range of colleagues who work to support children and young people. At a national level the creation of the Support Staff PL Framework in August 2021 has reflected the work done in this area but barriers to staff engaging with it persist. The Pupil Support Staff Engagement Report^[15] states that time to engage with PL is still an issue among this group. This view was upheld by the findings of this report.

Some LAs are working on creative solutions to address these barriers. Through collaborative work with TUs and staff, West Dunbartonshire have recognised that this is an area of need. Through their support staff service review, they are currently planning strategies to address this as part of the review process. Other LAs are also exploring this approach with one proposal recently agreed in Fife which would increase pupil support staff contracts weekly by 1 hour with a view to providing additional time for those colleagues to engage in key PL and planning activities.

PL in relational approaches was consistently referred to as a supportive factor both directly to improve the wellbeing of the staff and indirectly by increasing the knowledge and skills of practitioners supporting children and young people or their colleagues.

4.5 Relational Approaches

Respondents identified various "relational approaches" to support health & wellbeing, including induction, mentoring, peer support, coaching, and supervision. These methods are at different implementation stages across LAs. The development of coaching models and supervision models is discussed in terms of implementation strategies: some LAs develop local methods, others purchase third-party services, and some are just beginning to explore, particularly in the field of supervision. The national Safeguarding in Education short life working group have been exploring approaches to implementing effective supervision models, and many LAs are progressing towards this in different ways.

Long-standing practices in LAs include mentoring and induction for supporting new staff or those in new roles. Induction was mostly referred to for newly qualified teachers, while mentoring often pertained to new headteachers. However, this reveals disparities among staff groups. The Pupil Support Staff Engagement Programme Evaluation Report highlights the consequences of inadequate induction for support staff, proposing actions and questions to enhance outcomes for these essential team members. These individuals report not feeling valued, despite being considered integral to teams and settings.

Some LAs were able to cite work in this area aimed at addressing this variance. For example, South Ayrshire highlighted that they survey the wellbeing of new staff six months after taking up post to gather information on how supported newly recruited staff feel in the organisation.

During the discussions, peer support was often referred to in the context of supporting staff to perform their roles and, while often including a wellbeing aspect, was not necessarily implicitly created to support staff wellbeing. Offers of coaching and offers of supervision were referred to from a wellbeing perspective in the main by respondents.

It was found that LAs have taken different approaches to providing coaching and supervision for their staff. Some are working towards the development of sustainable approaches using the resources, skills and knowledge of those in their authority, others have chosen procurement of models from outside agencies to provide these approaches. However, this may be leading to inconsistencies in approaches and potentially inequity in offers provided. In line with the joint efforts being made nationally by SG and COSLA to support the development of an empowered, connected, self-improving education system^[16] there may need to be consideration given to how best to balance these approaches to develop a cohesive national approach.

Some challenges highlighted were in the development of relational practice models which considered the cultural experiences and strengths of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) staff, the accessibility of offers for support staff due to the constraints on their time and the resultant effect of this exclusion on their wellbeing. It is important, therefore, to ensure the inclusivity of offers is considered during their development or procurement.

South Lanarkshire have been exploring a range of relational approaches as part of a strategic response to local and national drivers around workforce wellbeing.

Illustration 4.

South Lanarkshire Council Education Resources- Staff Wellbeing Supports

Promoting staff wellbeing is a core component and essential part of a whole school and whole system approach to supporting mental health and wellbeing in South Lanarkshire.

This area has been a key focus for South Lanarkshire's Education Resources Mental Health and Wellbeing Group, and work strands have included, but not limited to, the following: HT support pods, research into teacher wellbeing and views on reflective practice models and developing and embedding approaches to supervision and support.

South Lanarkshire has been developing "support pods" for headteachers in collaboration with their Quality Improvement Officers and the EP service to provide a sustainable approach to ensuring the HWB of their heads of establishment is sufficient to support them in their roles. 93% of headteachers involved in the pods found them to be useful with positive outcomes highlighted such as, connection to others, space to talk, an emphasis on self-care, shared emotional load, perspective and a safe and supportive experience.

In response to local and national drivers around workforce wellbeing, and discussions from across education, a survey to scope the views of education practitioners around the potential benefits of models of reflective practice was also developed. This invited participants to indicate their preferences for different models of reflective practice.

Alongside this research there has been pilot activity on supervision and reflective support sessions with third sector providers, aimed at supporting staff mental health and wellbeing. "It has been difficult to achieve a sustained level of impact through these interventions, so our current work is taking a different approach. We are delivering a module of supervision and reflective support skills training to key secondary school leaders and working with them to support small tests of change looking at how they apply the learning and build sustainable models of supervision. The course will cover a range of content, including the key features of supervision, skills for supervision, and a follow up session on implementation. In addition, there will be an offer of ongoing support."

Coaching

Scotland's National Coaching Strategy for Education^[17] has an aim of providing equitable access to coaching experiences and conversations and systems of support that foster coaching. Considering resourcing pressures, it is therefore important to understand the barriers to developing sustainable models and to continue to work together to develop inclusive approaches so that equitable access can be achieved and embedded.

"As Scottish education navigates the next phase of change and reform and continues to develop an empowered system, Education Scotland (ES) and GTC Scotland (GTCS) have been working with stakeholders to develop a more coherent system-wide coaching strategy which builds on strengths already in the system and supports greater equity of access across local and regional areas." ^[18]

The findings show that although work is cited in many LAs as being ongoing, the approaches are variable which may indicate a need for continued focus in this area.

Supervision

It was found that some LAs are at a more advanced stage of implementation of a supervision offer, and others who are yet to begin work in this area. Some education colleagues (Educational Psychologists) benefit from regular supervision as part of their role and are regularly providing a supervision offer to teaching colleagues in some LAs, mostly in reaction to a critical incident. Education staff are often those who raise initial concerns around child protection and collaborate with colleagues in policing and social work who benefit from a nationally consistent approach to supervision. It can be seen from the findings that while LAs are investing resources into meeting this requirement, the current approach to LAs developing individual responses is resulting in an inequitable and inconsistent approach.

Barnardo's Scotland published their discussion paper in 2019 which 'called for a national conversation about the support available for the mental health and wellbeing of teaching staff and consideration of the role of Professional or Reflective Supervision within Education.'^[19] Thereafter, in early 2020, Barnardo's published their research findings^[20] which sought the views of those working in education on the role of Supervision. This research alongside updated national CP guidance^[21] and further research through other organisations, has contributed to supervision in education continuing to be a key discussion point. It is one that requires further consideration with a view to progressing consistently across education services. It has emerged that there is not a comprehensive understanding across education regarding the terminology of the concept of supervision. This is impacting on the best way to devise LA strategies to implement supervision with education staff.

Further understanding may be required into what support may be of benefit to those working to develop a proactive, cohesive and sustainable approach, who would be best to collaborate, and how this could be progressed.

4.6 Communication

It was discovered, on both the factors that influence the creation of wellbeing offers, and the approaches to promoting the uptake of those offers, that communication plays a key role. Communication is a perennial factor in organisational change and requires careful consideration of how to be optimised so information can reach those it is intended for. The charity Mind states:

"Poor communication can be a significant cause of stress. Levels of staff wellbeing and engagement will be negatively affected if staff feel:

• overloaded with information they cannot process.
• excluded from key knowledge and conversations.
• unable to feed their views upwards.

Where communication is clear, open, effective, manageable and responsive, staff will be able to access all the information they need to do their job while avoiding overload." ^[22]

The effects of inefficient communication on employee wellbeing are highlighted in the quote above and the findings would support this. LAs highlighted the challenges of communicating across a large organisation with people in a wide range of job roles.

One concern highlighted by survey participants pertained to notifying employees about available wellbeing support programs. It was noted that there is a perceived shortfall in communication regarding daily updates, which has effects on staff morale. Additionally, strategies were discussed to enhance communication inclusivity and reach out to groups that are often overlooked. The ESGs universally discussed communication in the context of raising awareness of staff to offer supports and creating a culture where people felt able to seek support. Some examples of this include building racial literacy, menopause, men's mental health and self-referral to counselling services.

Models of communication

Digital

Post pandemic most communication to staff has begun to be weighted in favour of digital methods. Approaches referred to included.

• Development of intranet, procurement of apps, email, PL portals or hubs.
• Examples of where challenges have been overcome relating to implementing QR codes so staff can use personal devices, intranet specific to education staff, hubs to gather information in the same place, questionnaires and consultation approaches.

Hierarchical

Often essential information being conveyed to staff is held online but personally relayed via line management to improve access. Respondents discussed.

• health & safety training, trauma informed approaches, child protection (CP)

Interpersonal

Many of the approaches discussed by respondents referred to the face-to-face communication of important information among staff. Either in summarising key information to pass on or to gather information from staff to support approaches going forward. For example,

• Wellbeing Champions –these models were identified in LAs and were broadly found to be supporting colleagues through a key staff member raising the profile of the LAs staff HWB strategy and approaches to improve awareness and access to available supports. This was identified as another approach to improving communication for more hard-to-reach employees, but it should also be noted that, on some occasions, Wellbeing Champions were also trained as Mental Health First Aiders.

Directional

While staff consultation activities can be used at an organisational level to gain insight, informal approaches at establishment level are also key contributors to improving workplace culture. Those opportunities where there is open dialogue and discussion, where views are listened to and acted upon, build trust, improve relationships and contribute to the workforce becoming more engaged.

There should be a balance of approaches to encouraging feedback and these should be clearly defined for staff to understand their purpose. Furthermore, there should be transparency in how feedback will be used to ensure staff feel their views have been listened to and acknowledged.

Respondents referred to:

• Collaborative approaches to planning for children and young people, solution circles to problem solve issues, staff consultation surveys, director roadshows, peer support networks and focus groups.

Overcoming Barriers

Many LAs are working hard to reduce communication barriers for identified groups of staff. Support staff can experience challenges in accessing IT or having time to engage with digital communication. Managing the volume of communications was also referenced by LAs in contributing to headteacher workload. One LA was using QR codes on lanyards of promoted staff to help direct colleagues to wellbeing supports to improve access. Indeed, developing mechanisms that are sensitive to the working conditions of the whole staff group is vital. Creating effective systems for support staff to provide essential feedback about the children they support can significantly impact outcomes for children and young people. Additionally, it positively contributes to the wellbeing of the colleagues whose valuable contributions are recognised.

It was found that communication was a commonly held concern among participants and that although LAs are continuously working to improve communication, it is a long-standing issue. Further investigation into how LAs can be best supported to share good practice in this area may be beneficial.

4.7 Evaluation of Impact

Positive HWB is a core enabler of employee engagement and organisational performance^[23] and there is evidence that LAs have acknowledged this through their efforts to make improvements and provide further support to practitioners.

LAs provided information on the universal and additional approaches to provide greater support to the education workforce. The key findings reflect the most frequently discussed categories of support being developed and delivered in LAs, in response to local and national challenges as well as being informed by key national recommendations.

During the LA interviews, and as nominated representatives shared their reflections of the progress in their own area, the information in Figure 10 was gathered which shares their self-identified areas of strength.

Areas most frequently discussed and perceived to be a strength in LAs were:

• Collaboration – working with internal and external partners to design and implement engagement activities and practice.
• EAPs – universal employee assistance programmes across wider organisations.
• Relational Approaches – all models of this nature and LA's approaches to implementing these for staff groups.
• PL – the universal and additional approaches to PL opportunities for practitioners
• Strategic Work – the education service or LA wide strategic approach to improving staff HWB and their priorities for the period of the strategy.

There is no universally agreed method for measuring workforce wellbeing and, therefore, understanding the impact of approaches to improving HWB can be challenging. There are key indicators that organisations can use which can be insightful, such as absence levels, changes to costs of covering absence and rates of access to strands of EAPs, however, the subjective nature of an employee's HWB and the other factors that influence it should also be considered. Staff consultation surveys are widely accepted to be a key method in measuring subjective wellbeing, but these methods are only strengthened when there is comparable data for analysis.

After the levels of reactive work required by the pandemic, more proactive spaces are starting to emerge. LAs were observed to be at different stages in their approaches to making strategic improvements to staff HWB. In terms of their own approaches and their progress, nominated LA representative's shared examples of, and information on:

• New or revised HWB strategies which include targeting the workforce.
• New or revised staff consultation surveys
• Pilot activities in response to workforce data
• Emerging practice from the learning of pilot activities
• Established universal offers.
• Plans for future work in this area.

The challenges of evaluating HWB practice to demonstrate impact is currently an area being experienced by LAs and, therefore, there is a lack of evidence which can be presented at this time.

There are existing frameworks that could support LAs to consider how best to measure the impact of HWB practice, such as an Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and other Quality Improvement methodologies. However, it should be noted that comprehensive approaches to evaluation should be built into the strategy guiding the practice from the beginning.

• AI – this is a strengths-based approach to creating change. These approaches involve identifying and focusing on what is already working well and demonstrating impact with a view to extending and building on those to support organisational change.
• QI methodologies – differing slightly from AI approaches, QI methodologies are centred on having an in-depth understanding of the issues that need to be addressed. The outcomes, and the priorities to deliver those, are then developed alongside considering the indicators that would demonstrate positive impact and progress.

Midlothian are taking a collaborative and strengths-based approach to promoting change and service improvement, as detailed below.

Illustration 5.

Midlothian Framework for Relational Approaches: A reflection tool for individuals and teams

Midlothian have developed a framework for reflection for individuals and teams, through a series of engagement activities, with key stakeholders across the Education Directorate.

The framework identifies 6 pillars which underpin the current thinking and research in nurture, trauma informed practice and the power of relationships in learning, and HWB within individuals and communities.

Each pillar has its own set of challenge questions to guide discussion and link to 'prompts from practice' which were identified in collaboration with Education practitioners, children and young people. These capture aspects of practice that are considered to be working well, which is one of the core principles of an AI approach.

The framework aims to encourage useful conversations and reflection within teams and with key partners, to strengthen the understanding of relational practice across Midlothian.

It should also be noted that a contributing factor to the lack of evidence on LA evaluations is the amount of practice that is still considered as emerging and, therefore, too early to comment on the impact. Organisational changes, such as improving staff HWB, are often long-term objectives and it is key that the necessary time is provided to these to ensure their sustainability and success.