Community Collaboration
Until now, our whole organisation approach to wellbeing has been within educational settings. Recently, mental health trainer Gemma Howard delivered this approach to a Community Interest Company (CIC), a first for the Trust.
The CIC is Single Parents Wellbeing, a Welsh charity dedicated to improving the wellbeing of single parents, their children and families across Wales. Gemma’s aim was to work collaboratively with them to identify where a whole organisational approach would add the greatest value to the charity and the community it serves.
She says: “Through discussion and reflection, it became clear that staff wellbeing was already a significant strength. However, we highlighted that the greatest opportunity for development lay within the wider community. Leaders wanted to strengthen the support available to the single parents and carers accessing their services, particularly in relation to children’s emotional and family mental health.”
They identified three priorities: to increase parents’ and carers’ knowledge, confidence and skills to support their children’s emotional wellbeing; to help parents and carers strengthen their own wellbeing; and to develop a formal community voice to capture feedback, evaluate impact and inform future service development.
These goals have shaped an ongoing programme of parent and carer workshops in collaboration with the Trust, including sessions on understanding anxiety, digital wellbeing and boys’ mental health and toxic masculinity.
As well as providing parents with practical strategies to support their children, every session places equal emphasis on supporting parents’ own wellbeing, recognising that caring for themselves is an important part of caring for their children.
Early feedback has been positive, with attendees saying the sessions feel accessible, welcoming and non-judgemental. One attendee said: “So interesting, lots of practical advice and information. Really made me stop and think about how I react to situations.”
Offering the workshops online meant that more people were able to attend around their family commitments. The sessions have been well attended, which suggests that presenting support through a compassionate, non-judgemental approach reduces barriers to engagement for single parents. Gemma says: “This highlights the importance of creating psychologically safe environments where families feel respected, valued and understood, particularly when discussing emotional wellbeing and parenting challenges.”
The next step will focus on embedding the programme of workshops, evaluating their impact and developing a formal annual community survey to capture feedback from the families accessing their services.
Reflecting on taking the whole organisation approach into community settings, Gemma says: “When grounded in collaboration, flexibility and strong relationships, the whole organisation approach has the potential to strengthen not only organisational wellbeing but also the wellbeing of the wider communities which organisations exist to serve.”
