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The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the functioning of education systems in a multitude of ways. In Ireland schools closed on March 12th and remained closed for the remainder of the academic year. During this time educators engaged with students, families and colleagues in new and diverse ways. The purpose of this study was to explore educators' experiences during the closures, particularly regarding the impact of the pandemic on the wellbeing of students, school staff and wider school communities.

A series of one-to-one interviews, lasting approximately one hour, were conducted in July 2020 with 15 education professionals online via Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Participants occupied various roles (classroom teacher, school leader, special educational needs coordinator, etc.) and worked in a diverse range of communities in Ireland. Qualitative data from interviews were transcribed and emergent themes identified through an inductive followed by deductive analytic approach.

The interviews highlighted the central role that schools play in supporting their local communities and the value teachers place on their relationships with students and families. Many teachers and school leaders found themselves grappling with new identities and professional boundaries as they worked to support, care for and connect with the students and families they serve. There was considerable concern expressed regarding the plight of vulnerable or marginalised students for whom the school ordinarily offered a place of safety and security.

The findings reveal how COVID-19 has exacerbated pre-existing inequalities and the central role of schools in promoting the health and wellbeing of all its members.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a commentary on Stocks and Slater’s paper, “Training in positive behavioural support: increasing staff self-efficacy and positive outcome expectations”.

This is a narrative review of staff training in positive behaviour support (PBS) and challenging behaviour, drawing on Stocks and Slater’s paper and the core staff competencies outlined in the PBS Competence Framework (PBS Coalition, 2015).

Taking into consideration multiple outcome measures, including staff outcomes such as self-efficacy, changes in staff behaviour, and the impact on quality of life for service users, may provide a broader insight into the effects of staff training. Supports and systems such as hands-on training, supervision, and practice leadership are also important factors that are likely to lead to positive service user and staff outcomes.

This commentary reflects on Stocks and Slater’s paper in the broader context of staff training outcomes and factors that contribute to high-quality services for people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour.

This paper focuses on one aspect of Health Promotion Service Avon’s Schools for Health Project 1997/98, which is the development, implementation, analysis and evaluation of an initial review questionnaire completed by teachers, non‐teaching staff, parents and pupils. This provided a baseline audit tool in 13 schools. The initial review questionnaire covered topics within the areas of environment, school ethos, staff and pupil wellbeing, curriculum and community. This helped schools to identify areas for development via the project. Benefits arising from the initial review exercise identified by schools included: giving all school members the chance to put their views across; engaging people in the project and raising awareness of the school’s involvement in the project; and giving legitimacy to concerns raised informally by staff. The importance of ensuring that any questionnaire given to non‐teaching staff and pupils is “jargon‐free” and “user‐friendly” was highlighted by some of the teachers involved.

Since 2010, Dorset HealthCare University NHS Trust has been running a Hidden Talents project seeking to better understand how mental health services can value the lived experience of their staff. The purpose of this paper is to inform discussions on how clinicians and other staff can share their lived experience of mental health problems to improve the experience of people who access services, their carers and supporters and promote the wellbeing of all staff.

The discussion paper was developed through the use of qualitative data collected through three focus groups. One of the focus groups represented people who are part of the Hidden Talents Project, one focus group had representatives of the different professional bodies and the third represented people who access services.

It was identified that there were two differing considerations between sharing personal experience one was sharing with people who access services, the other was sharing with colleagues and managers. It was identified that in order to safely share personal experience it needed to happen in an supportive organisational culture. A number of suggestions were made as to considered why, when, how and what to share with people who access services.

This is not a formal piece of research, rather it is an exploration of a range of views and set out into a discussion document. Further action and research is required to explore this topic area in more detail.

At present a number of mental health services are beginning to address the value of lived experience in the workforce. Very little has been published exploring how people can share their live experience. This paper provides a starting point for these discussions.

The paper aims to present a case study of multi award‐winning management team's methods used to profoundly increase staff performance through engagement.

The model covers applied techniques in internal communication; management training; managing performance (underperformers and star performers); and staff wellbeing.

Results included a 20‐fold increase in output with only a three‐fold increase in staff; sick leave reduced by one third; and staff turnover reduced by more than half.

The paper presents practical, easy‐to‐follow, scalable methods of an employer described by a national judging panel as “exceptional […] astonishing […] determined to go the extra mile towards every employer's dream: a contented, highly motivated workforce”. It includes 12 tips for managers to become excellent people managers, and the ten common values of excellent teams.

Mental health champions (MHCs) and young health ambassadors (YHAs) are two innovative public health interventions. MHCs are practitioners who work in schools and other youth settings and aim to be the “go to” person for mental health in these settings. YHAs are a linked parallel network of young people, who champion mental health and advocate for youth involvement, which was co-produced with young people across all stages of development implementation. This paper aims to identify the potential benefits, barriers and facilitators of these interventions.

Semi-structured qualitative interviews (n = 19) were undertaken with a purposive sample of n = 13 MHCs, and n = 6 YHAs, between June 2021 and March 2022. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, anonymised and then analysed following a thematic approach. Ethical approval was granted by Newcastle University’s Faculty of Medical Sciences Ethics Committee.

The findings are organised under five key themes: motivating factors and rewards for MHCs and YHAs; outcomes for children and young people (CYP) and others; impact on youth settings and culture; facilitators of successful implementation; and implementation challenges and opportunities.

These findings are intended to be of relevance to practice and policy, particularly to those exploring the design, commissioning or implementation of similar novel and low-cost interventions, which aim to improve mental health outcomes for CYP, within the context of youth settings.

The interventions reported on in the present paper are novel and innovative. Little research has previously been undertaken to explore similar approaches, and the individual experiences of those involved in the delivery of these types of interventions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine and compare levels of burnout, traumatic stress and resilience amongst Norwegian nursing care staff in two intellectual disability (ID) services.

This was a cross-sectional survey in which 137 staff completed questionnaires measuring work-related stress, burnout, compassion and resilience. Two groups were compared; staff in the national forensic ID services and staff in the community ID caring services.

Nursing staff in the community ID caring services had significantly more signs of stress and burnout compared to the other group. At the same time they were more compassionate.

The different caring cultures examined in this study indicated that the forensic ID staff tended to focus on the physical aspects of the caring role whilst the community ID staff tended to focus on the relational issues. The impact of serious events resulted in a higher level of stress and burnout symptoms, however the community carers showed more compassion to their work.

Mental health staff often experience significant levels of stress working in the acute psychiatric inpatient setting. Team-building interventions can mitigate stress in health-care settings, via improvements in team-cohesion, staff interactions and communication skills. The “Tree of Life” (ToL) is a specific narrative therapy approach which uses the metaphor of a tree to facilitate the construction and sharing of strength-based stories. This study aims to describe the development of and evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and staff experiences of the “Team Tree”, an adapted Professional ToL (PToL) intervention.

A one-hour, Professional ToL intervention was designed for multidisciplinary acute inpatient staff teams working within a psychiatric hospital in London, UK. A mixed methods approach was used to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability and staff experiences of the session.

Participants were 46 multidisciplinary staff (33 women; 13 men) working across four acute psychiatric wards. The intervention was feasible to deliver and was acceptable to participants. Results showed significant improvements in self-reported mental well-being and team-cohesiveness scores post-session.

Psychologists face myriad barriers in working with staff teams in the acute inpatient setting. The “Team Tree” intervention was both well received by staff and practical to deliver within the challenging environment of the acute ward.

This adaptation of the original PToL emerged from the author’s work with distressed inpatient teams with limited time resources. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first description of this intervention using a single tree metaphor to facilitate a reflective and creative session with health-care teams.