Thursday 1st February was national ‘Time to Talk’ day, dedicated to encouraging everyone across the country to begin opening up and starting important conversations about Mental Health. As part of this, Weston College launched a new exciting partnership with an online support service called ‘Togetherall’.

All Weston College students can now access free online support with Togetherall (www.togetherall.com). Whether students are struggling to sleep, feeling low, stressed or not coping, Togetherall can help them get support, take control and feel better. At any time of the day, all around the clock.

Togetherall provides 24/7 online peer and professional support in addition to providing a safe space online to get things off your chest, explore your feelings and learn how to improve and self-manage your mental health and wellbeing. It is run and monitored by professional psychiatrists and allows the College’s students to explore ways to better manage stress, worry and general wellbeing.

To sign in, all students have to do is use their Weston College log in. The College has invested in a year’s subscription to this service, and is one of only 13 pioneering colleges in the country to do so.

Georgie Amos-Ford, Lead Specialist Practitioner in Mental Health at Weston College, said: “Togetherall reflects the changing dynamics of the mental health needs of students’ and allows a proactive approach to positive wellbeing. Mental Health needs arise 24/7 and Big White Wall provides support for students outside of college hours utilising the technology that is so familiar to them.

“We hope that Togetherall will have a big impact within the college and allow all of our learners to reach their full potential, emotionally and academically.”

For more information, go to: www.togetherall.com

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The Weston College Staff Mentoring Programme is a new initiative that aims to help new staff settle into their job roles. Recently, 31 members of staff representing faculties and departments across the College completed the course and are now ready to mentor new curriculum, assessing and business support staff alike.

The new academic year will welcome a wide array of new lecturers and support staff, many of whom were recruited via our Industry into Education initiative, where the College recognised the need for industry experienced candidates within the education sector.

Andrea Greer, Vice Principal for Human Resources, Offender Learning & College Reputation, said: “This is a brand new internal CPD course for the College and it was a natural progression from this year’s “Industry into Education” theme, which has seen unprecedented levels of College growth and numbers of new staff from industry joining us.

We knew that there were already many natural mentors within the organisation, and we wanted to capitalise on this and create a more structured approach to mentoring that would provide an ongoing framework of support for new employees from the start of the next academic year.

Most importantly, this course is focused on further developing our staff and ensuring that in the end, everything we do is to ultimately benefit our learners”.