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More than 20,000 children and young people in 66 schools across Halton local authority in Cheshire are to get mental health and wellbeing support from Thrive.
Thrive has been awarded a £300,000 contract by Halton Borough Council to train primary and secondary school educators as Thrive Licenced Practitioners.
The three-month training programme will equip educators with practical strategies to actively develop the emotional wellbeing and resilience of children and young people.
The training will also give educators an in-depth understanding of the science behind social and emotional development and how this influences attendance, behaviour and learning outcomes.
Halton schools will also have access to Thrive’s award-winning online platform, Thrive-Online, that will help them to assess pupils’ social and emotional needs, create targeted action plans, and track their progress over time.
The council is funding the contract through the Department for Education’s Delivering Better Value fund, which is designed to support local authorities and their partners to improve the delivery of SEND services for children and young people whilst working towards financial stability.
Several Halton educators have already started their training. All schools across the authority are expected to complete training over the next 12 months.
Charlotte Finch, Acting Director, SEND and Inclusion at Halton Borough Council said: “We believe the Thrive Approach is going to be transformational. This partnership with Thrive underlines the local authority’s commitment to improving mental health and wellbeing and ensuring every young person in the community has an equitable chance to engage with learning and succeed.
“In Halton, we are ambitious for our children and young people. We want to do everything we can to support our schools to create the best possible environment for them to succeed. We want our children and young people to feel safe, understood, happy and able to reach their full potential. A key element of this aspiration is our commitment to embedding Thrive across all Halton settings. It is a very exciting partnership and one which is going to make a significant, positive difference.”
One of the schools to benefit from the Thrive rollout is The Brow Community Primary School in Runcorn. Headteacher Lindey Webb said: “As a school we have a large proportion of children who have experienced trauma in one form or another, which has such a huge impact on them and their families. Thrive will give us the training and tools to help those children to overcome a range of barriers which will lead to improvements in their wellbeing, attendance, behaviours for learning, and ultimately their future opportunities.”
Anna Smee, Managing Director of Thrive, said: “Halton is prioritising the mental wellbeing of the children and young people in their education settings and we at Thrive are excited to be part of this work.
“We know from our experience of working with education system leaders and individual schools for more than 25 years, that when the right support is in place, children’s behaviour changes and they become much calmer and happier within themselves. This is the key to successful learning and to lifelong wellbeing.”
