- Have you started the new school year thinking more about your own personal mental health and well-being?
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Are you thinking about 'mental wealth' as well as 'mental health' with all of your school community?
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Do you know how to pause and reset?
A guest blog by Kelly Hannaghan, LGfL's Mental Health and Wellbeing lead.
When I first stepped into the role of Senior Mental Health Lead, I don’t think I fully appreciated the scale of what I was taking on. Championing the well-being of staff, students, parents, and, let’s not forget, ourselves, while also holding a strategic, whole-school overview can sometimes feel like trying to carry the weight of a whole community on your shoulders.
I know the feeling of being pulled in ten directions at once. The safeguarding meeting that overruns, the student in crisis, the member of staff who quietly asks for help at the end of a busy day, the parent who calls because they don’t know where else to turn. And then there’s the quiet voice in my own head saying, When do I get a moment to breathe?
What were the patterns and pressures last year that we need to be mindful of this year?
Are we doing enough?
If this sounds familiar, I want you to know, you are not alone. This work is not designed to be done by one person, however passionate or dedicated we may be. It is a whole-school task, a collective responsibility. Our role is not to hold it all, but to lead the way in creating structures, conversations, and a culture where wellbeing can thrive.
I’ve learned, often the hard way, that the only way through the overwhelm is to pause and reset. For me, RESET isn’t just a framework, it’s a lifeline.
Reset
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Reflect on current challenges
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Energise your whole-school systems
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Strategise sustainable responses
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Engage every stakeholder
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Treasure achievements, large and small
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The Current Landscape: What’s Shifting?
Safeguarding Guidance: KCSIE 2025
On 1 September 2025, the updated Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance came into effect.
Like you, I’ve had to sit with the detail, and I keep reminding myself: this isn’t just another document to file away. It’s meant to shape how we live and breathe, safeguarding us in our schools.
The changes, naming misinformation and conspiracy theories as online risks, clearer responsibilities for Virtual School Heads, and closer alignment with Working Together to Safeguard Children, remind me that our role as Senior Mental Health Leads sits right in the middle of these conversations.
Safeguarding and mental health cannot be separated.
Wider Pressures We Feel Every Day
Let’s be honest: the pressures in education right now are heavy. Behaviour concerns, attendance dips, staff burnout, parental anxiety, none of this is abstract; it’s what we walk into every day.
The reports of a “behaviour crisis” aren’t just headlines; they’re what we see in classrooms, corridors, and staffrooms. The new RSHE reforms, covering topics like incel culture, suicide prevention, misogyny, and online harms, feel daunting at first glance. But again, I’ve learned not to see them as another giant project to “fix.” Instead, I ask myself: what’s the one small step we can take this term to move in the right direction?
Do you understand your role?
What is YOUR responsibility, and what is collective responsibility?
Why RESET Matters
The truth I keep coming back to is this: sustainable outcomes only happen when wellbeing is shared. When it stops being “the Senior Mental Health Lead’s job” and becomes the whole school’s culture.
That doesn’t happen overnight. But each reflection, each conversation, each small action builds towards it. RESET helps me to keep perspective when the work feels overwhelming.
Final Thoughts
If you’re reading this, I want to say what I sometimes need to hear myself: you are doing enough. You are not alone in this. You don’t have to carry everything at once.
Use RESET to guide you. Break the big pressures into smaller, manageable steps.
Celebrate what’s already working.
Share the responsibility.
Look after yourself with the same care you want for others.
Together, we can create schools where wellbeing is more than a buzzword, it’s a lived reality, a foundation for every child, every adult, and yes, for us too.
Look up,
look around,
Reconnect, and RESET
About Kelly Hannaghan:
Kelly is a Mental Health and Wellbeing Consultant and has spent her professional career passionately focusing on enhancing the opportunities and life chances of people in education. Through the power of her mental health training and therapeutic relationship skills, she has successfully led a school through the Wellbeing Award for Schools process. Kelly is an active speaker, blogger and writer of wellbeing in education and is passionate about creating the conditions under which teachers, pupils and families flourish.
Kelly has recently led on the DFE Wellbeing for Education Return Programme with Kent County Council and is currently leading on the EBSA (Emotionally-Based School Avoidance).
She is the founder of the ‘Family Matters’ empowerment program that supports family health and wellbeing, positive relationships, healing trauma and positive parenting strategies. This has resulted in outstanding outcomes for family engagement.
Kelly consistently empowers stakeholders through initiatives to build their resilience in learning and the workplace. Her work has been recognised by the Department for Education, the NCB, the Anna Freud Centre and the Education Support Partnership. Her collaboration with LGfL, creating the ‘Wellbeing Connected’ digital resource and receiving a digital excellence award for digital wellbeing for inclusion.
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