School Leaders' Mental Health and Wellbeing Support Package - CF Award

The Authority is seeking to appoint a Contractor to deliver a new mental health and wellbeing support package for school leaders, from autumn 2021.

A pilot was set up in June 2020 to provide professional supervision, through online peer to peer support and one to one telephone supervision, to school leaders. Following the completion of the pilot, the Department is now introducing a longer term and larger scale support programme, which builds on evidence from the pilot and aims to offer tailored mental health and wellbeing support to school leaders, in support of the Department's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The successful Contractor shall deliver a programme of professional supervision to a minimum of 2,000 school leaders who are experiencing mental health and wellbeing challenges. The service shall be delivered, as a minimum, through facilitated virtual or telephone-based peer support and one-to-one counselling.

The programme must be made available to state primary and secondary school leaders (deputy headteachers and above) in England and prioritised to those with no existing access to an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) or equivalent.

The programme includes, but is not limited to the following main elements:

a minimum of 2,000 school leaders to be supported via at least six sessions of either:

• an online peer support group programme, with the size of support group and length of session to be determined by the successful Contractor. This should be delivered by experienced, qualified coaches who have an accredited coaching qualification, and ideally, experience of group facilitation in schoolbased settings.

Or,

• online/telephone one to one counselling, with the length of sessions determined by the successful Contractor. This should be delivered by British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) or UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) registered counsellors, or equivalent.

As set out in the tender documents, the Authority expects to award the Contract from September 2021, and the relevant exit activities to have completed by March 2023.

The maximum estimated total contract value is anticipated to be up to £760,000 (excluding VAT). Annual funding for the programme (subject to internal DfE approval) will not exceed £380,000.

Interested organisations are referred to the procurement documents for further information on the description of the procurement, the Contract and the Authority's needs and requirements.