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Updated:
May 25, 2023
Written By:
Liz Robson
The Wellbeing Ambassadors Primary programme is a great way to promote positive mental health and wellbeing within your primary school. Running the programme in your school is a great way to get children involved in leading pupil voice-led interventions. This is a key recommendation from the DfE as part of their guidance for promoting wellbeing in primary schools.
The Wellbeing Ambassadors primary programme is a vital resource for children and primary schools. By providing information and resources to help promote wellbeing strategies and positive relationships and peer support essential for protecting children’s mental health.
The programme is designed to be delivered by teachers, TA’s and staff who are passionate about helping children to lead healthy, happy lives. This guide will provide you with all the information you need to get started as a new Wellbeing Ambassador Programme Facilitator in your Primary School of setting.
The Wellbeing Ambassadors primary programme is a practical way to help children to be emotionally healthy and reduce the risk of mental health problems. The programme provides information and support for children to learn about and look after their wellbeing and find ways to share these strategies with their peers or the whole school community.
The programme trains children as Wellbeing Ambassadors, so that they can develop their wellbeing skills and support their peers within their school or other educational setting.
When you become a facilitator you learn how to deliver this programme yourself to the children you work with.
You will learn how to deliver
Our Wellbeing Ambassadors programme for practitioners is a licenced digital train-the-trainer toolkit. When you join the practitioner programme you get three years of access to our complete programme delivery resource toolkit, for two staff members from primary schools or children’s settings.
Working through the online programme gives you the resources and training to be able to train cohorts of children to become wellbeing ambassadors year after year.
Plus, our online help and motivation will ensure you have everything you need to deliver the training workshop with children and run the programme successfully.
Within the Wellbeing Ambassadors online programme, you’ll find everything you need to deliver the programme within your school or setting:
The specialist support version of the programme includes everything that is available in the practitioner programme. In addition, the package includes expert help from our team of psychologists and consultants.
In the first year of your three-year licence the Wellbeing Ambassadors training workshop is delivered in your school or setting by one of our qualified positive psychology coaches and consultants (the specialists). Our specialists will work with you to help you learn about the programme and gain confidence in delivering it.
This means that you will have everything you need to deliver the wellbeing ambassadors primary programme successfully, so that in years two and three you can continue to deliver the programme using the online materials to as many cohorts of children as required each year you remain a licence holder.
A member of our team will come to your school or setting and deliver a practical and fun workshop that lasts for half a school day or three hours, and can be fitted into your school timetable and requirements.
You will be allocated one of our specialist consultants who will liaise directly with the team leader for the ambassadors programme to discuss the logistics and practicalities and come to the school or setting to work with the facilitator. This ensures that the programme is both effective and enjoyable for everyone involved.
It is important that one of the facilitators who will be supporting the children on an ongoing basis are available to work with our specialists and be part of the delivery experience as they will be responsible for providing the ongoing support and encouragement to your settings team of ambassadors.
Wellbeing Ambassadors Primary is a licensed programme a school or setting subscribes to. Your setting will have access for three years from the time your log-in details are sent to you via email. Your school will identify a team leader, usually a named member of staff in charge of overseeing the programme and ensuring its success.
The log-in details are sent to the team leader on receipt of payment. You will not be able to access the programme until we have received payment either by card or invoice payment.
The team leader will be able to allocate two facilitator licences. These can be transferred to any other staff members at your school or setting with just a few clicks. That way, even if your original facilitator moves on, someone else can easily take over the programme and continue supporting the wellbeing of your pupils.
Your membership year starts from the day the log-in is sent, not the day you first log-in, as this can be days or even weeks later. To get the most out of the Wellbeing Ambassadors programme for the maximum time we recommend, if you can, to get started as soon as you receive your login access. a real difference in your school or setting.
The programme licence is for the school or setting not the facilitators, if any facilitators leave their roles they will be unable to login and gain access, but of course their new school or setting can also join the programme.
After you first online programme, we recommend watching the training course modules – a short CPD session – and familiarising yourself with the facilitator’s manual. In these we talk you through, the background theory and evidence for a peer-led approach to wellbeing, how the practical workshop you deliver with the children might work in your setting or primary school.
You will be able to download the slides and the instructor manual. You will be able to access everything you’ll need to deliver this programme to the children you work with.
The next step will be to recruit your team, your Wellbeing Ambassadors! How you might do this depends on the needs of your school or setting. For example, some schools have chosen mixed year groups or key stages as their Ambassadors.
A thing everyone loves about our programmes are the practical wellbeing resources based on positive psychology, the science of wellbeing. We worked with 14 primary schools to help us develop this programme. One of the requests they had is that the programme provided a flexible ‘toolkit’ of wellbeing resources that can be used for children from year 1 to year 6.
As part of the programme you learn how to use a 12 page Wellbeing Ambassador workshop book for the children and additional worksheets and activities that helps you adapt the programme to meet the needs of children ages 6-11.
As part of the online training for this programme you will learn about the underpinning wellbeing science that shares how the resources works to improve wellbeing so you can make informed choices about which of the activities and resources will best suit your children, primary school or setting.
Assuming a new role can be daunting, especially when it comes to wellbeing facilitation. But don't worry - our programme resources are practical and helpful, and will give you everything you need to get started. The timeline below provides an example of what to expect in your new role as Facilitator.
You will be able to identify who the right children are to be your ambassadors
And how to and promote your programme to ensure you make the programme a long-term success in your school or setting.
You’ll have accessed the online training and materials and trained your team of children to become ambassadors.
You will have developed an action plan with the ambassadors and made a start on helping them make a big impact to the wellbeing of their peers.
You’ll be supporting your wellbeing ambassadors to lead their peer wellbeing interventions, these may be lunchtime wellbeing campaigns, friendship or buddying sessions or wellbeing assemblies
You will even be starting to see the impact on these from the feedback children and your school community
As a facilitator, it's important to know that you have ongoing support available to you. Our team of programme leads provide hotline drop-in calls every half term, and there is also an online facebook community where you can get peer support, seek advice from other facilitators or ask questions about the programme. Knowing that there is always someone there to support you will help you feel more confident in your role as a facilitator.
The programme will also provide you with opportunities to feedback on your experiences, so that we can continue to improve it. You will also have the chance to show the difference you and your ambassadors have made in your school through sharing your experience as a spotlight school.
The programme is run over three years in order to provide schools or settings with the time they need to develop into confident, competent facilitators of targeted peer support.
Three year access provides schools and settings with the opportunity to truly develop an effective peer to peer support intervention over time, so it becomes truly embedded in your setting and an integral part of early support for children’s mental health.
As your programme evolves you can train up several cohorts of children to become ambassadors. These ambassadors then can support you to recruit and train cohorts of peers in order to embed a culture of wellbeing across your primary school. You can run the ambassadors programme as many times as you like to as many children as you like as long as you retain your licence.
The aim of the programme is to create a generation of wellbeing ambassadors who are able to support their peers and promote positive mental health throughout the school community even if some of your first cohort of ambassadors leave during the three year period.
Toward the end of your three year's access we will get in touch with an renewal notification email and enough time for the school or setting to renew for another three years. If you want to renew the licence, just let us know and we can set up the renewal process for your school and setting.
You will then be invoiced for another at an annual renewal rate, using the finance and information you provided when you first joined.
There is no obligation for your primary school to retain your licence but we would love it if you remain a member so we can support you to continue to provide targeted peer support.
If your setting no longer wants to continue to use the programme, just wait for the licence to run out and your access will be revoked and you and the other facilitators will no longer be able to access the programme or use the materials.
Remember as a facilitator you get ongoing support for three years so don't hesitate to reach out if you need any help - we're here for you. Together, we can make a difference for the wellbeing of all. Thanks for being part of this crucial work!
Not already joined the Wellbeing Ambassadors Primary Programme. You can find out more about the programme here. Interested in learning more about the programme and how it can help your school by joining our upcoming free workshop.
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