Case Study: How Health Mentor nurture groups have improved the emotional wellbeing of target pupils

With National Mentoring Day set to celebrate the support provided for children and adults on Friday, we take a look at how Evolve Health Mentors have developed the emotional wellbeing of pupils within a Birmingham primary school.

A quartet of Health Mentors are currently deployed within this particular setting and two of their three annual objectives are to support target groups and individuals through mentoring and nurture interventions.

Engaging resources and activities are formulated with the purpose of supporting the behaviour and emotional needs of pupils, thus improving their academic attainment within the classroom.

Evolve Regional Manager, Oli Zaki, has noted how “the Health Mentors have become an integral part of planning and delivering high-quality nurture sessions for vulnerable children at Summerhill.”

However, Oli understands that communication with permanent school staff is also critical for success. He added, “the Health Mentors work collaboratively with school staff to plan and deliver these sessions. They have also developed a strong working relationship with the senior leadership team and have regular meetings to review both their own progress and that of the children.”

Data from the 2016-17 academic year further underpinned the important role Health Mentors are playing in supporting target pupils at the school. Health and wellbeing assessments identified that the personal development of these pupils had increased by an average of 7.4% and emotional wellbeing had improved by 6.7%.

Learning Mentors in the school work closely with Evolve Health Mentors and they were full of praise for the achievements over the last year. It was noted that “we [the school] used to have children who wouldn’t join. They all join in now and even the teachers have noticed differences in the class.”

Further feedback suggested the Health Mentors “are really easy to get along with. They are enthusiastic and looking out for the children as much as we are. If all schools could be involved with it [Project HE:RO] then that would be great.”

To find out more information about how your school can deploy such support, contact Josh Cronin on josh@evolvesi.com or Damon Fox on damon@evolvesi.com.