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In the Spotlight: Gloucestershire Hospital Education Service

Published

I have been working with GHES for a year now and was totally blown away with the support that this service gives to our children and young people. Being a teacher myself, I always wondered what happened to our children when they became very ill and how the GHES team would support them.

The team welcomed me in, and I had the privileged to attend both sites for Primary and Secondary pupils.

Wellbeing Friday sessions happen at both sites and in a short time I saw a wealth of outside agencies that assisted a variety of children; the service has an outstanding list of organisations that offer support.

GHES has a completely bespoke curriculum that staff spoke about highly and commented on how they tweak and add different topics due to pupils’ interests and what’s current in the world. Some sessions take place online if they can’t happen face-to-face. Mental health and Wellbeing are at the highest priority for GHES, the children’s medical needs come first then mental health. Once the child or young person is ready comes a very bespoke educational curriculum offer. All this is being delivered around busy doctors, nurses, and bleeping machines.

Both sites had school rooms which the children and young people could attend, and the environments were creatively used and full of warmth, curiosity and were very welcoming, as were the teachers. I observed the school rooms on both sites for their wellbeing session and Friday club. The Friday club gave the students a chance to meet with like-minded pupils and have face-to-face interaction with staff also. This space was also created to help support the young people to gain the strength and support to think about a life beyond GHES.

The opportunities for students to develop responsibility, build confidence and self-esteem are phenomenal

(Hayley Hancock, GHLL Lead Teacher).

When speaking to the GHES team, they said: We are the (Mental Health) Champions! GHES are extremely proud to announce that we have successfully achieved Mental Health Champion status from Gloucestershire Healthy Living and Learning (GHLL). This award recognises the excellent provision we have in place to support the mental health and wellbeing of our students and colleagues within GHES. It also acknowledges the commitment and hard work of all staff in achieving our vision that children can thrive despite their health conditions.

Promoting and supporting the mental health and wellbeing of our whole school community is paramount. It is bedrock of all that we do. GHES students, all of whom have either mental or physical health conditions preventing them from attending school, are particularly vulnerable to poor mental health resulting from their illness but also its wider impact, which can result in isolation from peers and in students no longer being able to participate in activities they once enjoyed. We also understand that emotional wellbeing is central to every child and adult’s development and goes hand in hand with performance.

The GHLL assessors, who spent a morning talking to students, staff, and parents, were incredibly impressed by the quality of provision across our service. Recent initiatives include the introduction of Mind of My Own (MOMO), an App that allows our young people to communicate, as often as they like, how they are feeling and what support they want. This ensures that the voice of every child is heard, and they are involved in all decisions made about them. Our use of mentoring services has transformed outcomes for some of our most unwell students, by:

  • developing a trusting relationship;
  • helping the young person venture out into the community;
  • building resilience;
  • increasing their feelings of self-worth; and
  • practising coping strategies.

We are especially grateful for the overwhelmingly positive feedback from the GHLL lead teachers, who wholeheartedly praised the effectiveness of our service in prioritising and improving the wellbeing of our students and staff. And we are enormously proud of each and every one of our students who work so hard, every day, to overcome their own personal mental health challenges.