We are incredibly proud to be recognised and receive The AcSEED Award for our Mental Health and Wellbeing Provision at Carmel College. The emotional wellbeing and mental health support we offer our students is paramount to our culture at Carmel.

The AcSEED Initiative recognises high-quality and substantial effort to support the mental health of students provided by schools in the UK. After the initial assessment and review process, the AcSEED review team were particularly impressed with Carmel’s:

• Use of Anna Freud Senior Mental Health Lead training.
• Thorough internal audit of Mental Health and Wellbeing provisions.
• Comprehensive and well written Mental Health Strategy.
• Good use of external speakers and organisations to further enhance student awareness on MHW topics.
• WISDOM App providing 24/7 Student Wellbeing Service.
• Good range of signposting to MHW support provisions.
• Evidence that the college responds actively to improvements identified through student voice forums (focus groups), in this case through the provision of more wall displays.
• Student Assistance Programme App providing 24/7 help and support.
• On-line counselling service available.
• Student MH Ambassadors with support resources from Anna Freud Foundation.
• Weekly safeguarding review.
• Mental Health and Wellbeing Tiers and Provisions provide valuable guidance to college staff, and strongly align with the tiers of support promoted by AcSEED.
• Staff Wellbeing Policy.
• Good range of staff wellbeing support provisions, including EAP and dedicated health days.
• SMHL training.
• Parent Coffee mornings targeting support for vulnerable students.
• Cedar to provide additional insight for parents.
• Working with other organisations to develop a local directory of MHW services available for signposting.
• Impressive history of MHW improvement initiatives, and good set of further improvements planned for 2023-2024.

“We’re really proud of the support provision we have for our students here at Carmel College which reflects our holistic approach to health and well-being alongside specialist help for mental health issues. It’s great for staff and students to be recognised for that and to have our college offer celebrated” – Lauren, Boswell, Assistant Principal for Student Support and Senior Mental Health Lead.

For more information on The AcSEED Initiative please visit – https://acseed.org/