Welcome to Wellbeing at Severn Vale School

We provide a recognised high-quality ‘wrap-around care’ package for students that ensures that they are very well looked after in school. Staff at Severn Vale pride themselves on knowing about each student, including their personal circumstances, their current levels of achievement and any potential barriers to their learning and attendance. This knowledge is used effectively to support, with great sensitivity, every student’s personal development and welfare, and their physical, emotional and mental wellbeing.

Meet the Wellbeing Team

We have a dedicated Wellbeing Team at Severn Vale School who are able to offer support for students struggling with their emotional wellbeing. This can include group work or confidential 1:1 support.
 

Amy Lloyd – Lead Wellbeing Practitioner

Amy is a qualified Mental Health Nurse and Specialist Community Public Health Nurse with extensive experience. Before joining Severn Vale School, Amy worked in the NHS, specialising in Eating Disorders and also working across several different schools in the county as a Senior School Nurse. Amy is passionate about early intervention and creating a safe and supportive environment across the whole school where students can build resilience, feel understood and thrive, both in and out of the classroom.

 

 

Jasmine Munford - Wellbeing Practitioner

Jasmine has worked in both primary & secondary schools since 2010. As a qualified Life Coach and Level 3 Counselling-trained practitioner, Jasmine is passionate about helping students make positive choices, overcome barriers to learning, and build the foundations for a bright and confident future. Jasmine offers a calm, supportive space where students feel heard, respected, and are able to express themselves freely.

 

 

Carolyn Howchin - Wellbeing Practitioner

Carolyn is a qualified Children & Young Persons Counsellor who is passionate about the wellbeing of our students. She has a wealth of experience having worked in several schools in Gloucestershire, and also has specialist Bereavement Training. Carolyn is empathic and understanding when it comes to the challenges many teenagers face today and enjoys supporting and facilitating a safe and trusted environment for them to make sense of their world. She is also passionate about working with young people who have a diagnosis of ADHD, supporting their challenges but validating their many strengths.

The Sanctuary

The Sanctuary is our dedicated Wellbeing Space in school, providing a calm environment away from the main school building. It also provides a safe and confidential space for external support agencies to meet with students.

 

Support in School

Referrals to the Wellbeing Team are made by the Head of Year. If you are concerned about the wellbeing of your child, please get in contact with the Head of Year to discuss a referral to the Wellbeing Team.

We operate a waiting list and cannot guarantee a time frame in which your child will be seen. Once a referral has been received, a member of the Wellbeing Team will carry out an assessment with the student to determine next steps. Parents will be informed of the outcome of the assessment.

Insert document – ‘Wellbeing Levels of Intervention’ (PDF)
 

Support Guides

These guides have been created by the Wellbeing Team at SVS.
 

Student Guides:

Managing Anxiety Guide

Beating Exam Stress

Positive Mindset

Sleep Guide

Social Media Guide

Reaching out for Support

 

Parent Guides:

Supporting your Child with Anxiety 

Supporting your Child through Exam Season

Partner Agencies

As part of the schools successful Wellbeing structure, the school is also privileged to access highly experienced partner agencies.

Menstrual Cycle Support

Severn Vale School is proud to partner with Menstrual Cycle Support (MCS), a nationally recognized program designed to empower students with essential menstrual health knowledge. As the first school in the UK to achieve MCS Schools Accreditation, we are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where menstrual health is understood, supported, and celebrated.

MCS provides a clinically-backed, evidence-informed framework that includes a 45-minute online course, broken into accessible 10-minute modules. The course equips students with practical tools to manage their menstrual health, reduce stigma, and build confidence. Students can access the course using their school email address at www.menstrualcyclesupport.com, with three years of access to revisit materials as needed. To further encourage engagement, students who complete the course are awarded a prestigious “P5” Headteacher Commendation, reflecting our dedication to their well-being and success.

This partnership also enables us to address critical issues like menstrual-related absenteeism, which affects up to 36% of students, by providing proactive support and resources. Through this collaboration, we are helping to ensure that no student’s educational journey is hindered by menstrual health challenges, while promoting overall resilience and self-confidence.

For more information about the MCS program, please visit Menstrual Cycle Support.
 

School Nurse

School nurses are public health nurses working in the community.  They are registered nurses, often with an additional specialist community public health nursing qualification at degree or postgraduate level. They have specialist knowledge and skills to enable them to work with children and young people aged from 5 to 19 in the community, whether they attend school or not.

They are based in the community, rather than individual schools, and work as a team in collaboration with education, health professionals and other services which work with children to improve health outcomes for individual children, young people and their families.

They assess and identify community health needs in school settings, offering support and advice on a range of health issues such as emotional health, obesity, sexual health, smoking and substance misuse. School nurses play a vital role in children’s development, carrying out immunisation and screening programmes, and they act as a point of contact for managing medical conditions such as allergies and anaphylaxis, asthma and epilepsy in schools.

The School nurse also works closely with social care in order to reduce health inequalities and to keep children and young people safe from harm. This proactive and preventative work is known as Safeguarding. Where harm is already known about or suspected in families, the school nurse teams work with a range of other professionals to support the family to make changes to their lifestyle or care of the child through formal plans of care. This is known as Child Protection. For more info on the School Nursing Service and to refer your child click here.

 

Let’s Talk Well

Let’s Talk Well Counselling provides young people with an opportunity to talk about their worries and problems in a safe space where they will not be judged.  The counselling is confidential which means that unless there are any safeguarding risks posed to a young person the counsellor won’t tell anyone else what students choose to talk about.  Some students find that they just want to come along and off-load all their worries, others want coping strategies or techniques to help them overcome their problems. 

Let’s Talk Well Counsellors know it can be difficult to know where to start or what to say so they help students to find a way to talk about what is worrying them.  They will find out what you want from counselling and together you will work towards it and track your progress. The school have both a male and female counsellor.

Parents/Carers are able to refer young people directly to Let’s Talk Well through their website. School are able to host Let’s Talk Well counselling sessions on the school site, with sessions scheduled during the school day. More information can be found here: Let's Talk Well in Gloucestershire | Free counselling and support for 9-25 year olds

 

YES Mentoring (Youth Engagement Scheme)

YES Mentoring is a service providing behavioural, emotional, social and educational support to referred students at Severn Vale. Mentoring sessions are offered on a 1-2-1 basis within the school environment, although there is the opportunity to engage in group work as well as support outside of school.

YES Mentoring offers students, a safe, nurturing and confidential space in which to express themselves, to talk about any issues concerning them and to be supported by a positive male role model, focusing on a child-centred approach. YES Mentoring adhere fully to Severn Vale school’s values, safeguarding and data protection policies.

 

Young Minds Matter 

Young Minds Matter (YMM) is a safe and confidential mental health support service developed for children and young people up to 18 years of age in selected schools across Gloucestershire. Severn Vale School is one of the schools to benefit from this additional support. 

The team can offer support to students who are struggling with things like anxiety, low mood and poor sleep or similar. This can be either face to face in school or via a virtual online platform.

Students/parents/carers can request that school make a referral for them via the Navigation Hub. Alternatively, students can refer themselves using YMMChat (see below information for students).

For more information -  https://www.ghc.nhs.uk/our-teams-and-services/children-and-young-people/camhs/young-minds-matter/

 

YMM Chat and Self-referral (Secondary school students only)

We have a friendly team of YMM professionals who are available to chat on text message during the school day (between 9am until 4:30pm) Monday- Friday (except bank holidays). The team will aim to respond either the same day or the next working day.

Young people can contact us by text if they want to share something that is worrying them, to get some advice or to self-refer and get an appointment.

Young Minds Matter Chat:
Text for Support: 07480 635723

 

On Your Mind Glos

On Your Mind Glos has an anonymous Mental Health Support Finder for anyone aged 0-25 that will help you find the most appropriate support options for you in Gloucestershire - On Your Mind Gloucestershire - children & young people's mental health - NHS