Welcome to the Lancashire Well-Being Programme
The well-being of staff is an important factor in the success of any organisation and none more so than in schools where the achievement of pupils can be enhanced or interrupted by the well-being of the adults around them.
(Reference Research Study into the Links between Staff Well-Being and School Performance. By Professor Rob Briner and Dr Chris Dewberry
Department or Organisational Psychology, Birkbeck College, University of London)
To view the report please select the link below.
Work Life Balance, Well-Being, Hard and Soft Skills are all terms which are very familiar to the twenty first century employee. They are used regularly and repeatedly, often scorned and ridiculed, misunderstood and misused.
In this context well-being can be misrepresented as all to do with physical health, keeping fit and healthy eating. Or at the other end of the spectrum it is regarded as 'pink and fluffy' and about having a facial or massage. It can be overlooked and paid little attention to until things start to go wrong. When this happens these so called 'soft skills' suddenly become the most 'hard' and difficult things to deal with and resolve.
The Lancashire Well-Being Programme recognises the importance of the Senior Leader role in relation to employee well-being and the resolution of tough issues but also that they manage organisations which, by their very nature, are interwoven with the ups and downs of human life.
It is for these reasons that the Well-Being Programme recognises the three contributing factors of Professional Well-Being, Organisational Well-Being and Personal Well-Being and offers a programme to enhance all three elements. No one element stands alone or is fixed, all are interwoven and interrelated, and all are constantly shifting and changing. For more details please see the links below.
When addressing the well-being of staff in schools it is important to recognise these three interwoven elements. They are constantly shifting giving focus to, first one area then highlighting another, never totally completed, 'signed off' or finished. Always changing and moving direction, and therefore difficult to 'box' and complete.
This is the challenge, and why staff well-being needs to be at the heart of the organisations beliefs, ethos and plans so that it is embedded into the organisation and becomes part of what the school is, and does.
As one head teacher put it when talking about joining the programme 'its not about whether they can afford to, it's about whether they can afford not to" .