A Whole School Approach

Putting mental health and wellbeing at the heart of school life

Supporting young people’s mental health and wellbeing isn’t a tick box exercise for schools. Good mental health provision is not a single PSHE lesson or a one-off assembly each term. Because you can’t necessarily see poor mental health, there needs to be a strong focus on openness to ensure that students feel comfortable asking for help and issues can be identified before they reach crisis point. To really make a difference, mental health needs to be part of everything a school does. 

The Whole School Approach to mental health involves the entire school community – students, staff, parents, Tellmi and the wider community – working together to promote and support positive mental wellbeing. The approach is built on eight key pillars which collectively ensure that schools are safe, supportive spaces for everyone. Tellmi actively supports each and every pillar.

1. Identifying need and monitoring impact
   Tellmi’s anonymous, age-banded 100% pre-moderated peer support model means students help themselves by helping each other. Human moderators risk-assess and topic tag every post and reply that comes into the app and anything high risk is passed to a counsellor who replies privately. Risk assessed data makes it easy for us to track patterns of behaviour, changes in wellbeing or escalating risk, with counsellors intervening preemptively in response to any high-risk posts.

2. Providing targeted support and appropriate referrals
   Tellmi trains school staff so that they can confidently signpost students to the service. It provides access to 365 day guided, supervised peer support, counsellor support and a directory of local and national mental health services. Tellmi also integrates into local safeguarding systems and works closely with NHS mental health teams. Being able to give students access to immediate support through Tellmi, with no waitlists and no treatment threshold, takes the burden off school staff.

3. Working with parents, families and carers
   Tellmi engages with parents, families and carers through online workshops, school newsletters and parents’ evenings. Tellmi insights help parents and carers to understand the kinds of experiences that young people struggle with. 

4. Leadership and management
   Tellmi ‘s 1-2-1 Programme Managers support school leaders and provide engagement materials and resources for students. Our data reporting provides evidence that leaders are prioritising the mental health and wellbeing of staff and students.   

5. Staff development, health and wellbeing
   All staff are shown how to use Tellmi to access peer support for themselves. The directory also contains a bespoke collection of resources for school staff. 

6. Ethos and environment
   Tellmi helps schools to actively promote respect and value diversity through co-creating engagement materials with students to destigmatise help-seeking and develop awareness campaigns that promote respect and diversity and encourage positive mental health behaviours.

7. Curriculum teaching and learning
   Tellmi provides schools with a programme of resources that map onto the academic year and are personalised for the specific needs of each school. These resources include PSHE lesson plans which incorporate content from the Tellmi app to help support social and emotional learning.  

8. Student voice
   At Tellmi, we make sure young people are involved in everything we do. Our co-creation workshops and co-design opportunities help generate awareness campaigns and resources that speak to students more authentically. Young people who take part in our co-creation activities have higher levels of  confidence and self-worth.

A Whole School Approach to mental health isn’t just a good idea - it’s one of the most valuable things a school can invest in for the future of its students and community. And Tellmi is here to help you do just that.