Relational care training

The proposed programme will be available to all 174 schools across Hywel Dda and the offer will include: • Up to three whole-school staff training days (on INSET dates - each school to attend one). • Individual staff training for key members of staff in each setting. • The programme is a progressive, spaced learning approach grounded in research on schema development and adult learning, ensuring that knowledge is understood, retained, and translated into sustained cultural change across all settings. • Ongoing support and supervision from the Navigate team throughout implementation. • Inclusion of PRUs, Colleges, and wider services, supporting alignment across all Hywel Dda Health Board education partners. While full outcomes will take time to evidence as the programme embeds within school settings, it is expected to deliver important improvements in soft outcomes, including emotional wellbeing, feelings of safety, and school belonging.

Evidence from the World Health Organization and the School Health Research Network highlights consistently low levels of wellbeing, teacher support, and school connectedness among children and young people in Wales, including across Hywel Dda. Strengthening relational approaches and emotional safety within schools is therefore a clear regional priority.

A fuller strategic rationale was set out in the attached application, which was approved by the Executive Director in December. At a system level, the anticipated outcome is a cultural shift across Hywel Dda - one that moves towards a Health Board with coherent, relational consistency.

The ambition is not to add another layer of training, but to unify what already exists under a shared framework that promotes emotional safety and sustainable wellbeing. Over time, this will enable Hywel Dda to become Wales’s first fully relational health board region: a system where children, young people, and staff experience the same sense of predictability and safety that underpins lifelong health and learning.

Let Us Navigate is the only provider able to deliver this specific programme to children and young people aged 4–18. The provider is local, able to deliver in person, and can provide sessions through the medium of Welsh, which is essential for delivery within Hywel Dda schools.

Alternative national providers were explored; however, these organisations deliver only to workplace settings, cannot support the required age range, and are unable to mobilise delivery within the required timescales for an April start. On this basis, a direct award to Let Us Navigate represents the only viable and timely option to deliver the programme and meet existing commitments to Local Authorities.