School staff signed off work with stress (FOI)

Request

A

I would like to know how many staff working in both primary and secondary schools have been signed off with stress related illnesses in the last five years. Please include support staff, teaching assistants and teachers.

B

Please confirm educations plans and the individual schools plans (other than AXA referrals) to help support their staff in education and minimise stress related illnesses.

Response

A

Please see details in the table below:

Please note that these include all colleagues who work in schools including civil servants and manual workers. ‘Other’ category includes mixed age schools and other areas or services provided in the school.

The department have determined that to provide the breakdown where there are fewer than five would likely breach the privacy of the individuals and therefore, Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) 2011 Law has been applied.

Please note staff may choose not to disclose the reason for their illness where they are absent for a short period. In addition, a medical certificate may be coded where the staff member does not want to disclose their illness. In these cases, they will not be included in the data shown and consequently the data provided cannot be exhaustive.

B

The department for Children, Young People, Education and Skills (CYPES) have a high level wellbeing plan linked to the corporate strategy and various wellbeing initiatives to help support all staff and minimise stress related illnesses. Head teachers are responsible for their own school’s wellbeing plan.

The implementation of the wellbeing plans is mapped to the corporate strategy to ensure shared responsibility across the department. Key responsibilities and deliverables included:

• corporate and departmental wellbeing initiatives

• support in promoting health and wellbeing in the workplace

• delivering agreed elements of the department wellbeing plan

• advice and support on health and wellbeing matters

• providing guidance on the professional physical, nutritional and mental health support available to staff

In 2019, we have been able to deliver wellbeing initiatives such as; ‘know your numbers’, blood pressure checks, the pedometer challenge, healthy backs, yoga, mindfulness training (staff and head teachers), ‘flu jabs, and ‘know your financial numbers’.

Other staff engagement activities included Stoptober, Swimarathon, fund raising events for local charities and the Jersey Marathon relay.

The Government of Jersey have launched a mental health first aider network. The aim is to have mental health first aiders in every department and workplace, so there will always be someone to talk to if any staff member feels stressed or anxious.

Mental health first aiders will be there for colleagues who’d like to have a confidential discussion, not just with their manager, but with a colleague who is trained to listen and who can support them to get the most appropriate help.

Mental health first aiders are not trained counsellors, but complement our BeSupported service as a first-level intervention.

BeSupported is provided by our Occupational Health partners, AXA. Staff can access counselling services including e-counselling, online counselling, telephone counselling and face-to-face counselling.

The 24/7 helpline offers practical, impartial information and support on everyday matters ranging from health issues, financial and legal matters (such as dealing with debt, buying a house and consumer rights) to home and family issues.

Staff also have access to a wide range of internal training courses, online and face to face, covering subjects such as ‘Introduction to Emotional Intelligence’, ‘Fitting the Oxygen Mask: Supporting Staff Health and Well-being’ and ‘What do we Mean by Self-esteem and How do we Improve it?’

In 2020 and beyond, the programme of activities will remain relevant to meet the varying needs of staff and both time and resource (financial and staff) for these will be made available.

Article Applied

Article 25 Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.

(3) In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.