We’ve been fortunate to work on some amazing projects over the years, none more so than our collaboration with Macclesfield College of Further Education.
Backstory: schools, colleges and universities are at the sharp end of mental health. The ‘age of anxiety’ has a jagged edge, with all the stats going the wrong way. Despite the best efforts of schools and colleges, demand for mental health support outstrips supply. Doing more of the same is a noble aim, but it’s not working.
Thanks to trust and vision from Rachel Kay (Chief Executive and Principal of Macclesfield College), we had free range to design and deliver something innovative and proactive.
In line with most of the sector, the college already had a robust mental health support system in place. Rather than dismantle that, we used it as the framework to build a programme with a radical re-focus, away from mental ill-health, towards mental WEALTH.
Essentially, the challenge was to get students to begin to take charge of their own wellbeing. The ingredients of human flourishing (resilience, purpose, confidence, positivity, strengths, self-care, growth mindset, etc.) are all learned behaviours. If the college could get these subjects onto the curriculum, students would flourish, learning would sky-rocket, and the entire college community would feel the buzz.
The question was how?
We started with staff buy-in. Andy kicked things off by delivering The Art of Being Brilliant for the staff and then we got busy thinking about how to embed wellbeing where it should be; centre stage, as an absolute priority and on the curriculum.
We assigned Martin Burder to work with the Macclesfield student coaches to super-charge their content. This meant that wellbeing, goal-setting, resilience, confidence-building and positive psychology began to be drip fed into all subject areas.
Martin also worked with a team of student wellbeing ambassadors, to equip them with knowledge and skills that they could share across college.
It’s early days, but the results are already staggeringly impressive. We’ve helped shape something completely different with the benefits being felt across the college.
This week was a world first. In light of the college’s proactive approach to embedding wellbeing into their DNA, we celebrated by presenting them with our Investors in Wellbeing Award. I must say, it looks amazing, and they wear it well.
We are super excited to watch this project continue to evolve over the next academic year and beyond. Even better, Macclesfield have plans to roll their ideas out across the FE sector.
Of course, there’s no one size fits all. The Macclesfield project was designed to fit local needs. If any school, college or university leaders would like a conversation about how to join the wellbeing revolution, I’d be delighted to chat things through.