Workshops
Our workshop content is designed to:
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Explore key terminologies and concepts in mental health, empowering students to engage in meaningful discussion
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Equip students with techniques to support their own mental health
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Increase student confidence in communicating their own mental health difficulties and supporting others with theirs
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Recognise the pressures associated with A-level exams, and support students to look after their mental health during exam periods
Workshop Program Overview
1. Introduction
We kickstart our workshop programmes with a series of short talks from our Trustees. They will speak to students, teachers and parents alike, outlining why we do what we do and what we hope to achieve from the coming weeks.
2. Volunteer Stories
The real value of our workshops, originates from our volunteer’s stories of lived experience. Each week, one or more volunteers will spend 20 minutes delivering a talk to students about their lived experiences of mental health difficulties.
3. Facilitated Discussion
After hearing from our volunteers, students will form smaller groups. Our volunteers will facilitate conversations with students around what they have just heard. Where appropriate, we may choose to touch on some educational content.
4. Tea and Talk
Following the facilitated discussion, students will have time for refreshments and relaxation. This provides an opportunity to reflect on what they have discussed with their peers, ask the facilitators questions privately, or approach education staff for additional support.
Our Volunteers
All of our volunteers are trained in delivering workshop content and undergo full DBS checks. They also receive support throughout the workshop program, including a volunteer Q&A session after their first workshop day (run by Lara), and an opportunity to debrief, and provide feedback, on their experience (facilitated by our trustees).
Interested?
As part of our ethos, we tend to recruit volunteers who have left sixth form in recent years (i.e. those under 25 years old), since this aids our relatability to students and boosts student engagement. The majority of our volunteers to date have been undertaking psychology degrees, however this is not a requirement for anyone considering volunteering. We encourage anyone with a passion for mental health, with lived experience of mental health difficulties or with an interest in student wellbeing to apply. If this sounds like you, please get in touch with our Volunteer Coordinator Lara via email (lara@beingwellcharity.co.uk).
“When I first became involved with Being Well they were still a small charity, yet their passion and drive was very evident from the beginning. They were very helpful in preparing us volunteers, so we felt confident and ready to deliver thorough and detailed workshops for the students. All the charity members were available to answer questions and offer guidance if we needed. The volunteering itself was very rewarding, and even in the short time we had with students each week, it was evident that the workshops were making a difference.”
- Francesca Lanzarotti, Volunteer
“When joining the Being Well team, everything felt like unchartered territory-I’d never done anything like this before. It became clear very quickly though that it didn’t matter. I was supported the whole way through and was taught how to use the skills I did have to help me present and work with the school. The informality of the interview was really useful for putting my mind at ease. It was an opportunity for the team to genuinely get to know me, and was helped by everyone being so friendly and chatty.
I think the training itself was key to the workshops’ success. It gave us a really good basis for how to deliver the workshops, how to deal with an array of scenarios and also instilled confidence in our ability to present. Molly’s willingness to answer any questions (no matter how big or small) then gave us the final boost we needed.
When it came to running the workshops, I felt so supported that a lot of my initial worries disappeared. I was able to see my confidence grow as I got used to presenting and adapting to the specific class I was given. I then noticed how these skills filtered through to outside of Being Well, with my presentation skills massively improving. Having then completed the workshops, it was extremely rewarding to see both my own, and the charity’s aims, come to fruition- we were able to educate those in school about mental health in ways we all felt was lacking in our own school experience.
All in all, I would really recommend volunteering with Being Well. Not only did it help educate those in school about mental health in ways not touched on by the curriculum, but it also helped me as an individual. I am now far more confident speaking to a large group of people, and feel confident in my ability to discuss mental health with people of different ages. A real success”
- Isabel Dewey, Volunteer
Case Studies
Below we explore two recent case studies of our workshop programmes. We would like to thank the students and staff at both schools for welcoming us, as well as for providing us with important learning opportunities that enable the continued improvement of our services.
The Priory Church of England School, Dorking
In October-November 2021, our brilliant volunteers Francesca and Elena ran a series of 5 weekly workshops for the upper sixth students at The Priory Church of England School, Dorking. The Priory’s close-knit sixth form consisted of around 20 students, which meant we were able to have all students in one room for each workshop. This enabled a lot of brilliant group discussion, something which we view as central to any workshop series.
The workshops followed our standard 5-week programme and involved some fantastic student engagement. We took student questions on how to keep ourselves and our friends safe, the nuances of mental health diagnosis, and sources of support for difficult times. There were also multiple queries around different types of talking therapies, which led us to produce a handout on just this topic (see Resources).
“Being Well ran excellent workshops for our sixth form students focusing on elements of mental health, how to maintain good mental health and what to do if you are struggling. The workshops were full of good advice and the presenters used real life examples to make our students feel like this was a problem faced by many people. We would welcome them back any time.”
-Phil Harrison, Assistant Headteacher and Head of Sixth Form at The Priory School
St Peter’s Catholic School, Guildford
In February 2022, we kicked off our first workshop series of the year with St Peter’s Catholic School in Guildford. For this, 7 fantastic volunteers ran sets of workshops for an upper-sixth of over 100 students. Due to the size of the student body, we split our volunteers into three mini groups, and had each mini group, in parallel, run two back-to-back workshops on each workshop day. Therefore, each workshop day involved 6 separate workshops, each hosting around 20 students. This made for a more intensive experience for our volunteers, but they all enthusiastically embraced the challenge.
Using this format, our volunteers delivered our first three workshops (Understanding Mental Health, Stress and Anxiety, and Building Resilience) across three workshop days. As always, students impressed us with their curiosity, querying how mental health difficulties develop, the role of neurodiversity (e.g. Autism, ADHD) in these difficulties, and many more fascinating topics. Student feedback also taught us that sixth formers were keen to know more about our - that is, Being Well’s trustees’ and volunteers’ - personal experiences of mental health difficulties; in response to this, we have recently started a podcast in which we share our own stories as well as the invaluable perspectives of a range of mental health professionals (see Our Podcast).