St. Chad's Case Study

I’m Jon Mannion and I’m the HR officer for St Chad’s Academies Trust, which is a trust based in the Midlands.

We have 19 Schools at the moment, so it can be fairly busy.

Since I joined the Trust four years ago, I’ve been on a bit of a mission to support our culture and support our people.

I’ve been very lucky in the fact that I have been given almost a free rein to look at what’s the best wellbeing services we can procure for our people within our academies to ensure that our people are putting children first.

So it was through an introductory email from Abbie at SAS, who was quite persistent for a few weeks.

When looking for an EAP in particular, I noticed that they also did insurance. So actually it just made sense to then start looking for an insurance, for the budgetary protection which enables to free up money within the academy to support wellbeing.

It was looking for that EAP and the wellbeing support combined with the insurance. And that just made sense to me. If we can protect and look after our people, then our insurance can do the same for our budget and organization.

But one should equalise the other. So if we provide a good wellbeing provision, we shouldn’t need our insurance and so our costs there will reduce. It’s about being proactive with your people management and most importantly, being compassionate.

So as a trust, we are trying to work a compassionate leadership network across all of our academies and using the compassionate leadership cycle to support that. A big part of that is self wellbeing, but also the wellbeing of others around you to create that psychologically safe place. And that’s why when looking across the insurance options and EAP’s nothing ever really knitted together, apart from SAS.

So interestingly, four years ago when I joined the Trust, we were just going into the pandemic and the pandemic hit everybody hard.

When we were looking at the budgetary factors with our 19 schools, it was soon creeping into about half a million, three quarters of million pounds worth of money lost through absenteeism. So it was very clear that we had to do something. 

Looking at your average percentage of absenteeism in the UK and within the education sector, it was about 6.5%. And we were just above that and that made us uncomfortable and told us that maybe we weren’t being people-focused.

We set about turning that around. Of course the benefit of the insurance is that it gives us that budgetary protection. You know that if somebody goes off, that you’re going to have that cover, that additional income to be able to either cover that class properly, or cover that role properly to ensure the function of any academy is happening at the highest level. Ultimately, that’s got to happen every day because of our children.

Our trust slogan is ‘children first in the footsteps of St. Chad’. So we’ve got to ensure that we are supporting in that way.

The financial protection that we have is best demonstrated from last year.

We had an academy… they’re a big school. That quote was quite high because they were covering both teachers and certain members of support staff. And unfortunately, they had two UPS teachers go long-term sick.

As part of their policy… they were able to claim back 38,500. Which gave full protection, but also enabled that academy to do targeted intervention because one of the members of staff was an English Lead, the other member was a Key Stage 2 Lead. So it just enabled them to buy in additional support to cover those two UPS teachers.

Schools Advisory Service’s values and ethos as an organization just fitted with ours, it made sense.

Their whole philosophy of if we can look after people, it stops them being off. But we’ll still cover if an absence occurs. That’s exactly what we wanted to deliver. Lots of other insurance companies or wellbeing companies focused more about the benefit they can give to individuals. So whether they can get a 10% discount at a retail store.

The difference is they’re about looking after people, not necessarily a 10% discount, which you get with a lot of other EAPs .

And they [other EAPs] may only offer an EAP as counselling. That’s it.

Whereas with SAS there’s menopause support. Which because we’re a primary MAT, 95% of our staff groupings are female. So at some point they’ll go through the menopause, if not already in it. But also the male members of staff will have family and friends that go through it as well. We’ve been on a bit of a crusade, regarding menopause support and SAS have been able to do that fantastically.

They also offer things like cancer support as well as counselling services, physiotherapy, and 24 hour access to a GP.

You know, these are all things that our people were telling us, were the things that they really needed and really wanted in their life. As well as things like weight management support and healthier lifestyle resources.

The resources we’ve been able to access is really why we went forward with SAS, because they deliver the whole package.

When I think back about times as a trust, we’ve had serious incidents happen. We’ve had some really difficult experiences, we were in a position last year where one of our academies unfortunately lost a student. Which was a completely tragic event.

But SAS were there. They were there with support. We had a specialist trained nurse come into school within a few days to offer support to staff and students. What more could you ask for.

We did research on the other providers and we did look at a whole MAT policy and compared it to individual academy policies, because of the financial restraints with some of our academies; We’ve got very large academies, and we’ve got some smaller academies. Not everybody can partake in the full insurance package.

So we decided that actually everybody could afford the wellbeing aspect. Then the schools that could afford it with insurance where required. We hope to progress and be able to financially plan better, so we take the full package next time for everybody because where we’ve had it it’s saved us time, it’s saved us energy, it’s looked after our people and more importantly, it’s delivered education within our classrooms. Which is the most powerful thing that we can do as a trust.

Some of our academies interestingly already used SAS. So there were some connections that were already within with our business managers and our business professionals within the academies. When we moved trust wide to ensure that all of our people were properly supported, it was really simple. We have an account manager called Jess and she supports us through everything really. But at the same time, the new business contact, Abbie was able to guide us and support us all the way through the process of implementing into their system and understanding their processes that procedures. Even to the minute detail of being able to look at each individual academy and ensure that some of our companies have a different excess. So some will be on a one day excess and some will be on a three day excess, and that that can manipulate the cost of the premium.

So it really is a product that fits to us. We don’t have to fit to it.

And that support is really good from SAS since they’re a family. And it’s really interesting because it’s like two families coming together. Because pretty much everybody knows Abbie and Jess from SAS. And it was interesting to go to the SAS offices and everybody knew me, and that was really powerful.

But we also have a designated nurse that’s assigned to us, Sharon, who’s been absolutely brilliant. She goes out to all of our academies and develops a connection with them to ensure that the wellbeing products are being used appropriately but can also offer specialist days. For each academy she will go in for the day and can do a health screening, personal health checks, and just be there as a friendly face for somebody to go and talk to confidentially if need be.

We had SAS at one of our Trust conferences and, Sharon, Abbie and Jess were all there. They were able to stand up in front of our academy leaders and explain the products. So it didn’t come from us. It didn’t come from the central team.

Overwhelmingly, all of our executive principals came forward and said, I want it. We’ve got to have this. This is this is what we need. It was a real journey, actually, but it was a really positive one. Nothing was too difficult. And the support we received to ensure that we got it right for us was outstanding.

St Chad’s Academy Trust is a Diocese MAT for Lichfield Diocese, and we are really fortunate in the fact that we are because it doesn’t matter where you are, we are all part of a wider family and SAS have just become another part of that family. They’re like the cool uncle or the cool auntie that’s always there with a smile and always there willing to help.

It’s empowered us as a Trust, and it’s empowered our people to know that we do think about them. It’s been really impressive to see the impact that has had on things like our school improvement, and seeing our academies improve because absenteeism has gone down, people are getting support, they feel valued and so they’re giving a bit more.

I mean our staff are amazing anyway, what they achieve and what they do is truly spectacular, but to know that they can pick up the phone and they can talk to somebody within the central team or SAS regarding any of the subjects is an amazing feeling.

I was in a staffroom the other day at one of our academies in Eccleshall, talking to a business leader in the academy about menopause because she’s currently going through it. She was saying how supportive the SAS information had been and how it empowered her to go to the GP and get the right support.

And with that another member of staff came into the staffroom and the business manager said, “oh sorry, we’re talking about the menopause”, and the other member of staff said, “oh right, okay”, and you could see that it was an uncomfortable subject for her. And we continued our discussion, and saying it might seem strange coming from a man talking about the menopause so much to people, but it was really powerful. Powerful in the fact it was a man talking about it and going, no, it’s really serious. And actually we really need to support as many people as we possibly can and do stuff for people, you know, making sure you’re telling people about SAS and telling people about the menopause support there because it can really help make a difference.

And this other member then started to cry. And I looked and I said “what’s the matter?”. She said, “I’m really struggling with the menopause” and we were able to have a whole conversation for about half an hour. Then the principal joined us, where were able to sit down, and this member of staff didn’t want to cause problems, you know. She didn’t want to be seen as somebody who’s constantly complaining about her achy joints.

But from that conversation, I know she’s already accessed SAS for that support, she’s accessed physio support. And the principal, because the conversation was started, has been able to ensure that members of staff can get time to go and see their GP. Which were all the things that member of staff was really worried about. So when I say it’s empowered our people, it really has, for the better.

And I think everybody post-COVID needs that warm hug, you know, and that’s what SAS can give. Albeit remotely. But it is a warm hug. And you know, there’s somebody on the end of the phone ready to help with whatever they can.

I’ll tell you this story, and it’s one that’s really hit home with me and it’s made it all worth it.

One of our members of staff in one of our academies, one bank holiday weekend had a lump under her arm. It just came up overnight, wasn’t there the day before. And then she contacted the out-of-hours GP because she thought, you know what it’s there, why not. So she contacted the GP who did a video call with her.

The GP said ” Well, I can’t give you anything over the phone, can’t write your prescription or anything. But what we’ll do is I’ll make a referral for your GP”. This was on the Sunday, on the Tuesday morning she arrived at work and got a call from a doctor’s surgery to say, “we’ve had a referral through, can you come through and see us?”. Luckily she was in a position where she could leave school and go to a doctor’s, and the doctor examined her and then referred her to a breast clinic.

By the Thursday, she was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer. Her words to me when she told me were “you saved my life” which is priceless at the end of the day.

And that’s because we have the EAP, we had that 24 hour access to a GP. So even if it was only that one member of staff that used it, it would have all been worth it. But we’ve had other members of staff who have been able to get support who are no longer with us, that they’ve either left the organization or they’ve gone on ill health retirement with some serious diagnoses. They’ve still been able to receive support through us, which is again, priceless. The difference you can make to an individual is really powerful.

It’s part of our Christian distinctiveness. It fits with our SIAMS inspections. But it’s really powerful and it’s really worth it. And I’m really pleased to say that the member of staff that got the referral has had really successful treatment and she should be back with us very soon working.

The beauty of having a Trust policy is that the central team are covered is well.

We’ve seen everything there, literally, and it’s been awe inspiring and changing. You know, we’ve had a member of staff lose over two stone, through the weight management stuff. We’ve had a number of the team access counselling. I myself accessed counselling when my dad passed away. And it was really powerful, because I was really struggling and I was able to have six sessions of counselling.

It’s changed my outlook, it’s a long process when you’re going through a grieving process. But the counselling really supported it, and I’ve never been a fan of that sort of thing, but actually engaging with the service and how simple it was to get a referral. If you go through the NHS, you could be waiting 6 to 12 weeks. With SAS, I was waiting two days to talk to somebody, which was really powerful.

We’ve had a number of staff use physiotherapy and it’s been great. I can’t speak highly enough of it. And the real impact we’ve seen is that the absenteeism rate has fallen across the trust when we’ve compared year on year. Granted, there are factors like COVID, but we firmly believe that because of the investment we’re doing with our people and the support we’re giving, we’re actually preventing absenteeism.

Where you can refer somebody to a physio there and then and within five days they’ve got the referral complete and they’re seeing somebody that surely is having a massive impact.

It’s stopping people from being absent, in exactly the same as, if somebody says “I’m struggling”. As your manager, I will do whatever I possibly can. But actually these are the specialist people. Give them a call. And the beauty of SAS, it’s all self-referral. So nobody needs to come in and ask me, as the HR department or a principal, to access the services.

It’s all done through a phone number which the individual phones themselves. If somebody accesses counselling that’s completely confidential and what we, as a trust can get, is some of the referral data. But we don’t know who, we don’t get names or personal information.

Which has again, empowered our people to use it because they know they won’t be judged, not that they ever would be, but there are stigmas. But the wellbeing resources that are offered from SAS covers all of all of those areas of support. So if somebody is struggling financially, they can access the counselling service, or they can access the financial wellbeing support.

Then there is the mentorship resources. So if somebody is looking to develop as a leader, or is looking to develop in school, there are elements of the EAP where they can speak to a national school leader, as an independent mentor. And our leaders can access that support as well. So whether it’s to just ask a silly question because they don’t want to ask anybody else or they’ve got an idea, but they need support in developing it. Some of our leaders have engaged with this and found it really, really useful.