Sonia Mainstone-Cotton writes about how learning from one another can help support staff wellbeing…
‘Wellbeing’ is now, thankfully, a word that we’re all familiar with. We hear it both for ourselves and the children we work with. There is a wider understanding that looking after wellbeing is not a luxury, but essential.
I’m a peripatetic nurture consultant working with children in Reception classes and nurseries. I work in eight primary schools and two nurseries, supporting children with high social, emotional and mental health needs, and their staff.
I’m part of a small team of five other workers. We’re a multi-disciplinary team including an ex-headteacher, a SENCo, a play therapist and an educational psychologist.
Here’s how working with colleagues, both in your own setting and across other agencies, can be vital to support wellbeing.
Ongoing learning can help boost staff esteem and promote an openness to change and less risk-adverse thinking. It can be easy to become stuck in habits and ideas, so one of the reasons I love to work with colleagues from other professions is the extension of learning I can gain.
I’ve been working in the field of Early Years for over 30 years. I enjoy how my practice continues to change and develop. I believe this has largely been helped by encountering a wide range of practices, hearing about the experiences of others and learning about different ideas.
Most settings have regular team meetings. One thing you can do is invite someone from another setting, agency or school to your team meeting to tell you about their role. We do this regularly in our team. We’ve invited a speech and language therapist who specialises in selective mutism, an autism specialist and someone who works for a local team that specialises in domestic violence.
By inviting them to talk to us about their roles and their areas of knowledge, we can extend our learning and practice. Often, we then go on to read further about the subject.
The way staff support one another is crucial to wellbeing. Teams where there is less support are, sadly, more likely to experience high turnover and staff sickness. Some teams engage in staff wellbeing weeks, which is a lovely gesture. However, it’s more effective to embed a culture of supporting wellbeing throughout the year, rather than for just one week.
There are many examples of how we can support our colleagues, but small, regular gestures often make the difference. Here are some simple examples based on my own experience…
Be welcoming: In Early Years we’re very good at ensuring children feel welcomed and that they belong when they arrive. It sounds so simple, but remember that the same is important for staff and colleagues.
When a colleague arrives, do we always say hello and smile at them? There may not be time for more than that in a busy setting, but if a person is ignored as they arrive, this can make them feel unwelcome and unnoticed, like they don’t belong.
Check in with one another: As well as welcoming someone, it’s important to regularly ‘check in’ with one another and ask colleagues how they are. If we know they’ve had a tricky morning with a group or a child, it’s even more important to check how they are feeling.
In my role, I notice that sometimes we normalise the challenging things that we experience. However, it’s important that we look out for one another. If a child arrived upset and it’s taken their key worker most of the morning to settle them, that key worker will probably be feeling stressed. As their colleague, we need to make the time to check that they are OK.
Acts of kindness: There is growing recognition that acts of kindness benefit both the recipient and the giver. Acts of kindness do not need to be grand gestures. They can be as simple as making someone a cup of tea, sharing a snack with them or bringing in some flowers for the room.
In our team, several of us make jams and chutneys as a destressing tool, so we regularly leave team meetings with something that someone has made. These are small examples, but they remind us we have been thought of and that someone cares for us and has noticed us. These small gestures can be an important part of boosting your own and colleagues’ wellbeing.
Make time to listen: We all know how frustrating it is when we’re not listened to. In our work lives we’re often extremely busy. Sometimes it can be hard to make time to have a proper conversation with colleagues. It’s vital to make time for this, perhaps over a lunch break or while packing away at the end of the day.
Even if it’s only for a short period, making time to have a conversation and listen to one another is crucial for helping support wellbeing across your team. It helps us to feel connected, noticed and heard.
These ideas are all very simple. There is no mystery about wellbeing. However, I do believe we need to be intentional about looking after our wellbeing and supporting our colleagues too.
Sonia Mainstone-Cotton is a peripatetic nurture consultant and author.
