Preventing Self-Harm: A Leadership Approach for Schools and Colleges

About this training

At Anna Freud, we understand that prevention strategies are essential to support student mental health and wellbeing. This course is for school and college leaders and has been designed to develop their knowledge of how to prevent self-harm within their settings.

The course includes sharing of key resources and frameworks to prevent self-harm and opportunities to reflect on how your current school or college ethos and culture may already be supporting self-harm prevention. Course participants are not expected to be mental health or self-harm specialists and are not required to have had previous experience of leading a strategy to prevent self-harm.

Pastoral support staff are recommended to consider our complementary course: Responding to a young person who is self-harming to gain a more practical insight to support your students.

Please note: Our two self-harm training courses are role-specific, please see the ‘Who is this training for?’ section for guidance, or email us at school.training@annafreud.org if you're unsure.

Aims of this training

By the end of this training, you will be able to:

• Understand what self-harm is and how to lead self-harm prevention in your school or college.

• Implement self-harm policies and procedures within your whole-school or college approach to mental health and wellbeing.

• Recognise what makes students more vulnerable to self-harm and understand the best way to respond when needed.

• Evaluate how your setting’s ethos promotes emotional literacy and relational approaches.

• Support staff wellbeing and development as part of your whole-school or college strategy to prevent self-harm.

Who is this training for?

School leaders, for example:

• Headteachers/principals

• Senior Mental Health Leads

• Deputy, and Assistant Heads

• SENCos

• Designated Safeguarding Leads