Case Study: The Beacon School

Overview

The Beacon School mapped their school wellbeing and mental health provision embedding their offer on the i-THRIVE mapping tool. This was to discover if the i-THRIVE framework is a useful mechanism for schools to explore how they respond to the needs of students.
The Beacon School’s key stakeholders are students, staff, families, local services and the community. The school is across two sites that caters for 342 pupils aged 3-19 years with Profound, Severe and Complex Needs (PSCN).

i-THRIVE in Action

Partnership Working: The Senior Mental Health Lead was unclear on how the framework would further build upon the extensive school’s whole school approach, and how it would work alongside their existing structures. They were keen to explore this with the iTHRIVE project team.

Needs Led: It was evident that The Beacon School has an extensive support programme for students, which includes provision plans,every student having an updated wellbeing plan, and consistent relationships amongst all staff and students.
Through this mapping the school identified areas of need they would like to address which would benefit students and families including:

• Holistic therapies, including with animals
• Family model support
• Bereavement training for staff
• Males and relationships support for students
• Developing support staff and retention

One concern identified was that the framework would create additional work and that it may replace existing services. Being a proactive school, the Beacon wanted to be included at the beginning to see how it would benefit their school. After completing
the mapping activity, they realised that the framework would not create additional work or was replacing services.

During stakeholder presentations, participants considered how schools perceive support structures. For example DKW service is commissioned as an element of risk support; however, it is employed by the school primarily to provide guidance aimed at preventing students from requiring further risk support.

Conclusion and Next Steps

The mapping was recommended by the school as a good opportunity to review their offer and identifying any gaps in their provision.
The Senior Mental Health Lead has mapped their provision on the template with next steps including sharing The Beacon mapping as an example and asking other schools to complete this at the Emotional Wellbeing Workshops. The areas for development are also being explored and addressed.