Health & Wellbeing in Integrated Learning Communities

Have you ever thought what it is really like to leave the world of a residential care home, to be thrust into the world?

I was lucky enough to see the first showing of the National Theatre of Scotland’s newest offering and I can assure you it didn’t disappoint. It featured some of the newest crop of emerging young actors who displayed nothing but first class acting skills. The set, the music and the content was by far the most incredible play I’ve seen this year.

If you have ever seen ‘Blackwatch’, you’ll know the incredible stories the NTS produces. This play had all the same drama and ‘knot in the throat’ style scenes, the incredible dance moves. It was all the more real for me working in education and having worked in residential units in the 90’s.

The story is set around a group of care leavers and their experiences moving into a ‘independent living’ flat. I must say it was so carefully scripted with a moral tale that left a desire to make every peice of work you are involved in more inclusive. Without giving you a ’spoiler’ all I can say is that really this play should be seen by everyone working with young people as a form of CPD.

A few pointers for you..

• Do you consider how every aspect of your teaching affects those in authority care?
• How can you support young people better in their transition?
• We are all ‘corporate parents’ now matter what service you work in.
• How are ‘our’ kids doing? Something we never really say once they have left authority care. But who does ask?

The play is now touring across Scotland, check out their website for more details. I cannot recommend this play to you highly enough.

I’ve had a great week this week, feels like after the holidays you need a couple of weeks to wind back up! The best meetings I’ve had this week have revolved around tech advancements in my world of Health and Wellbeing and the approval of a much-needed policy.

The first is my wiki for those trialling the Health and Wellbeing Outcomes for Curriculum for Excellence. The wiki is www.hwbtrialling.wikispaces.com we’ve now got a page for those who are trialling the outcomes unofficially, great projects including trialling the outcomes for young people living with Gypsy and Travelling Communities.

My second is that this week is our www.healthyhighland.com website, just a little partnership site that includes my online photogallery. We’ve developed it to have a new blog powered by CuteNews which means that folk involved can update their own developments. Easy to use, Cutenews is a winner for me.

My third BIG peice of news is not so much a great technological advancement, but a huge breakthrough for me. A policy was passed this week at The Highland Council Education, Culture and Sport Committee. The policy covers health education in school communities, it essentially means that ANY agency outwith the council and NHS who wish to work in schools must be approved by the specialist team in Highland, this gives us a quality assurance over materials and facilitators AND gives schools the peace of mind that they are disclosure checked and comply with our strategies, learning and teaching policies and general ethos of Health Promoting Schools. Copy of the policy and report here

My fourth and final, I’ll blog about later, but lets just say I really am confident we have secured a very inclusive way to promote ‘Internet Safety and Responsible Use’ in Highland.

So that’s been my week folks, hope you’ve had a good one too!