It goes without saying that staff, parent & children’s wellbeing should be a focus all year round. Here at Kidzrus we make a conscious effort to ensure this is the case, 52 weeks of the year! From providing mental health first aiders to duvet days to support staff mental health, as a company we are always looking at ways we can do more and give back to our practitioners and families. Along with the year round initiatives at Kidzrus, we also enjoy taking part in early years wellbeing week each year, hoping to spread awareness and new ideas to all involved in the early years sector!
This year, the 5 Kidzrus nursery sites have all chosen a day of the week to showcase how they support the adults and children within their nurseries. A particularly successful initiative was the “Mental health drop in” sessions held at Kidzrus Monton!
Although each nursery has an open door policy and the staff are free to speak to management at any time, the focus of wellbeing week and the sessions we were offering seemed to encourage the staff team to come and have a catch up which was so nice to see. During the sessions we discussed everything from what mental health means to us, how we find our work/life balance and how we have been feeling lately, to asking our staff members for feedback on how we can support them more in the workplace. All of the drop in sessions were very relaxed and staff seemed at ease to openly discuss their feelings (we also had sports day so staff were in their own clothes, as silly as it sounds, I feel like this made a real difference to the vibe during the sessions!!)
“Good mental health means something different to everyone. Something one person might find easy, another may struggle with. I think it’s about really knowing yourself, how you relax and what makes you happy.“ Practitioner at Kidzrus Monton
All staff members contributed so well during their sessions, offering management feedback on how we can do more to continually improve our support network. The overwhelming feedback was that staff wanted to spend more time together outside of work or taking part in leisure activities with one another, which was so encouraging to hear.
“You constantly ask us how we are, check on us and are very approachable! I always feel comfortable and love that you take the time to do things like this.” Practitioner at Kidzrus Monton.
Overall, we’re really pleased with how well the sessions went and we certainly feel that it has strengthened relationships between practitioners and the management team, so much so that we have decided to hold the mental health drop in on a monthly basis!
