Healthy Minds at Work LLP
Who we are
We are a team of commercially experienced psychotherapists and coaches, working across organisations of varying sizes, with extensive experience of working in the Education sector. We provide bespoke services focussed on supporting teams and senior leadership to build, develop and manage their emotional/mental health, wellbeing and resilience.
Our current client base includes ARK Schools, Create Partnership Trust, UCLH and Great Ormond Street Hospital Schools alongside several other Academy Trusts and Local Authority schools. We have also designed a Peer Supervision Training for Kingston and Richmond Safeguarding Children Partnership, which was rolled out to schools and nurseries across the borough.
HealthyMinds@Work offer a psychodynamic approach to Supervision and Coaching, delivered by experienced psychotherapists. This approach allows individuals and groups to explore their emotional responses at a deeper level, helping them to understand their anxieties and reactions to complex dynamics often present in schools. This is proven to help staff effectively tackle those inaccessible issues which can both limit performance and impact on their emotional and mental health.
As psychotherapists we have many years of experience in creating reflective spaces which feel safe and confidential. This helps support individuals to express their feelings, and encourages them to be curious about their emotional and behavioural responses, thereby creating a constructive learning environment for both individuals and groups.
Our training and experience in group dynamics affords us an understanding of the anxieties and challenges which arise as a consequence of working in teams. This enables us to support individuals and groups so they can collaborate and function effectively
It is our aim to help individuals working within organisations to thrive, which ultimately helps the organisations to provide optimum environments in which their school students can flourish.
What we do
HealthyMinds@Work provides:
•Supervision for Safeguarders, Head Teachers, SENDCO’s and groups of senior leaders or staff.
•Leadership coaching - We use a psychodynamic approach to understand our emotional responses to our work, tasks and roles, to help employees improve productivity and better manage their relationships, behaviour and time at work.
•Psychoeducational workshops on key areas including: - emotional intelligence, managing stress, building resilience, work/life balance, understanding the emotional demands of working in difficult environments and career development.
•Psychoeducational workshops on mental health awareness and emotional development of children and adolescents.
Safeguarders carry an enormous emotional burden. In order to hold on to one’s expertise when working in these emotionally demanding roles, we often need support to process the range of emotions we might experience. Our clinical experience has demonstrated that when working in such emotionally challenging environments, if the emotional burden is not acknowledged, it could become a drain on one’s emotional resources – ultimately affecting one’s mental and physical health.
Regular psychodynamic supervision sessions can offer a reflective space to help DSLs, staff and school leaders better understand and manage the psychological impact and emotional demands of their work. This can increase resilience and boost productivity, while enabling staff to better support the students and their families, emotionally and practically. This also helps protect staff from burn-out, compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma.
Supervision for Safeguarders (be it individually or in teams), provides this level of support. It offers a space, facilitated by professional psychotherapists, for targeted reflection and help with digesting and processing work-based, emotionally difficult, and sometimes distressing situations. It offers the opportunity to de-brief and think constructively about the impact of the emotional demands of challenging scenarios. This enables the individual to create important emotional boundaries for themselves, thereby avoiding becoming emotional sponges in difficult environments (ie soaking up the feelings from the families that they support) and ultimately maintain their resilience.
Leadership Coaching
HealthyMinds@Work provide Psychodynamic Coaching which combines a traditional form of coaching with the insights, tools, and techniques we bring from our psychotherapy clinical work. Psychodynamic coaching allows coachees to work at a deeper level by paying particular attention to their unconscious drivers and understanding current relationships through the lens of early attachment relationships.
This can be a powerful tool in promoting personal development and avoiding communication and relationship difficulties. By providing a non-judgemental, safe space, individuals can reflect on their and others’ unconscious thoughts and feelings, and understand the many emotional responses to the complex dynamics they face.
This helps coachees be more honest with themselves, acknowledge and overcome barriers, understand their defensive thinking patterns, remain resilient, challenge unhelpful beliefs and unconscious biases, increase creativity, build more effective relationships, and maximise their performance so they can achieve their potential.
Workshops: Please see website
for information :
How we help
How we help
"The expectation that we can be immersed in suffering and loss daily, and not be touched by it, is as unrealistic as expecting to be able to walk through water without getting wet.” Rachel Remen, "Kitchen Table Wisdom”
We have seen the serious impact on the emotional, mental and physical health of people working in schools if emotional challenges are not processed. Not only can this compromise their ability to perform their roles, but can also detrimentally impact their personal lives. Organisations expecting their workforce to be healthy and effective therefore need to take an active role in caring for the mental wellbeing of their staff.
Our vision is to support and enable educational institutions to become emotionally intelligent and mentally-healthy workplaces, where staff have the skills, behaviours and confidence to work well together.
Our experienced team provides regular reflective practice groups, supportive supervision sessions and psychodynamic coaching sessions helping teams to manage these challenges. These are key interventions for DSLs, SENDCO’s, leaders and staff teams within school trusts, providing significant benefits:-
•Develops the emotional intelligence and resilience by better understanding and managing the psychological impact and emotional demands of their work.
•Increases their ability to deal with difficult situations.
•Improves wellbeing, helping staff remain healthy and resilient.
•Increases staff retention.
•Helps prevent mental health issues; particularly for those working in safeguarding and SEND.
•Decreases risk of burn-out and compassion fatigue.
•Enables staff to better support the children and their families, emotionally and practically.
•Builds relationships between colleagues and peers.
•Creates an experiential learning opportunity that offers support, understanding and self-development.
•Provides tools and techniques to improve leadership, relationships and communication skills.
•Creates a healthier and more productive environment where all staff can perform to the best of their abilities.
Our clients become better thinkers, with deeper self-awareness, improved relationships and an increased ability to cope with the challenges in schools. We want to bring this insight to your Trust and schools.
Our work with schools UK-wide is providing an essential service to many frontline educators who have extremely demanding roles supporting vulnerable students and their families. We regularly receive feedback from clients demonstrating that this work is not only developing the emotional resilience of staff, but is also creating a culture of reflective practice, improved communication and teamwork across whole schools.
Testimonials
- "I have found this service invaluable - I don't have the opportunity elsewhere to work through some of the challenges I face in my role.” Ark
- "I haven't changed my practice, I've changed my thinking” – Ark
- "I have no reservations whatsoever in recommending HealthyMinds@Work to other organisations seeking to deliver supervision work in schools and nursery settings” KRSCP
- "Supervision has been amazing for being heard and… provide the time to reflect critically and sympathetically about the important role we have in our schools.” ARK
- "Working alongside HealthyMinds@Work has ensured I carve out individual time to consider the wide-ranging demands of my organisation and the personal impact this has; ultimately ensuring the school continues to move forwards productively.” Great Ormond Street Hospital School
- "HealthyMinds@Work have supported a culture shift in our organisation. They have reinforced the importance of physical and mental health and given our team strategies to manage workloads effectively and encouraged open communication.” Create Partnership Trust
