Creating brighter futures

Weston College, a leading further education institution, is proud to announce its participation in The Education Training Foundation (ETF) Leadership Mental Health and Wellbeing project. This project aims to create space for leaders to reflect on and share their journey towards self-awareness and positive mental health, through a trauma-informed approach.

The project offers various resources such as webinars, podcasts, and blogs. Since January 2023, different leaders from FE have shared their journey on how they’ve changed the culture within their organisation. Through listening, learning, and leading by example, a culture shift can be embedded, starting from the top.

The podcast series "ETF Leadership Mental Health and Wellbeing: Changing your culture to embed mental health and wellbeing at the heart of further education," showcases real stories from FE leaders who have approached “reflection and resolution” within their own individual practice and wider organisational approaches, specifically addressing how to avoid burnout and be equipped to deal with stress. Polly Harrow, Assistant Principal Student Experience, Kirklees College and Chair of Executive Board, National Association for the Managers of Student Services (NAMSS) interviews a series of guests about how they’ve been on a journey of creating a culture change within their organisation.

In the second podcast episode, Polly talks to Sir Paul Phillips CBE, Principal and Chief Executive, and Dr. Georgie Ford, Strategic Lead – Healthcare and Nursing at Weston College about their experience and learning from their trauma-informed approach to mental health support. The interview focuses on their experience and learning from their trauma-informed approach to mental health support, particularly on how they support staff mental health and wellbeing and the impact this has had on changing the culture of the organisation. They discuss how they have created a supportive environment for staff, including training, regular check-ins, and open communication channels, and how this has positively impacted the overall mental health and wellbeing of staff and students.

The podcast provides valuable insights into the importance of creating a culture shift towards mental health and wellbeing in education institutions, as well as practical advice for leaders looking to implement changes within their organisations.

This program is delivered by Association of Colleges, commissioned by the Education and Training Foundation on behalf of the Department for Education.

To listen to the podcast series, search "ETF leadership mental health and wellbeing" on your podcast provider app or click here for the episode on Spotify.

Weston College is proud to be part of this project and hopes to continue promoting a positive culture towards mental health and wellbeing in the education sector.

Here at Weston College, our employer relationships and how we can benefit your business, is a huge part in the role we play. Our Business Growth Team work extremely hard on the employer engagement, so we are excited to launch a new series of blogs from members of the team, allowing you and your business to find out how to benefit from Weston College.

To kick off this series, we have caught up with Kirsty Woods, to explore her role and responsibilities within the team.

“My name is Kirsty, I am a Business Partnership Manager, and I started this job on the 3rd October 2022. My role is to engage with businesses from the Construction industry, identify how the College can support them with training and recruitment, and create opportunities for our learners. I act as the first link between Weston College and the Construction Industry!

It’s a fast-paced role which I love! There is no such thing as a typical day; I find gaining a detailed understanding of a business, their challenges, and the opportunities for us to support them really interesting. We’re lucky to work with a fantastic group of businesses and the interest from employers to work with the College continues to gather momentum.

Predominantly, I work with employers within the construction industry, but they hugely range in size and discipline. For example, I can be speaking to some of the largest organisations in the country one minute regarding their training and development needs but then, supporting a local SME to access funded or commercial training to taking on their first apprentice brick layer the next! It’s just so varied which is why I find it so rewarding. According to the latest Construction Industry Training Board report, we will need an extra 38,200 workers in the South West alone by 2027 so my role supporting Industry to link with education and their future workforce whilst raising the profile of construction as a career path is crucial.

Without a doubt, my favourite part of the job is organising industry events or securing progression opportunities which directly benefit our fantastic construction learners. As a highlight so far, I worked with colleagues to create a BACE Talk series as we have had an ambition to highlight the breadth of careers to our construction students this year, as showcasing careers through our Career Excellence Hubs is a key part of the College ethos. I also love getting to meet so many different people all with a shared passion for developing the next generation by showcasing Construction for the brilliant and varied industry it is. There are so many opportunities to develop a rewarding, sustainable career and it needs to be shouted about!

Weston College is renowned regionally for excellence and I am proud to be part of it. I fully subscribe to our ethos of delivering careers not courses. I was born in Weston-super-Mare but moved to Bristol aged 7 so it really does feel like I’ve come home!

There are so many opportunities for Construction employers to benefit from working with us. From taking on an apprentice, to commercial training for upskilling their existing staff, and employers can be part of our Construction Careers Excellence Hub to engage with future talent through offering guest lectures to our Learners or offering work experience or T Level Industry Placements.

There are still major skills shortages in construction and employers are increasingly aware of the need to build an early talent strategy. The challenge for employers is often knowing where to start.

That’s my job – to identify the shopping list, offer solutions and build long-term employer partnerships. It all begins with a conversation. Employers can email the Business Growth Team at employers@weston.ac.uk to start that conversation…