A Health and Wellbeing (HWB) App for Glasgow City Education staff is now available. The app was developed by Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership’s (HSCP) Health Improvement Team and will be launched at Education staff health and wellbeing co-ordinators meetings (Early Years, Primary and Secondary) in May.
 
The app was developed following the launch of Glasgow City Council’s Digital Strategy, which led to the introduction of digital teaching resources such as Apple iPads for teaching staff and pupils.
 
The app aims to streamline communication, share quality assured materials and create a consistent health and wellbeing offer across the city. It’ll provide a ‘one stop shop’ where teaching staff can access a range of health improvement resources including:
 
• a continuous professional development calendar 
• interactive curricular resources 
• non-curricular resources and publications 
• specialist topic information 
• information on services for children and young people and
• useful contact information.

Nicola Scott, Health Improvement Lead, who has led on this project for the Glasgow City Health Improvement Team, commented: “We’re pleased to launch this HWB app for Education staff in Glasgow City. We developed the app with input from our Early Years, Child and Youth Health Improvement staff, and it allows us to host all relevant health improvement related information and resources for Education staff in one place. This will build capacity for improving health and wellbeing in the city and support teaching staff to deliver the curriculum. Also included is the Glasgow City Youth Health Improvement Training Calendar, which provides course information and registration for staff Continuous Professional Development (CPD).”

The app was user-tested by Health Improvement and teaching staff. One respondent commented: “Lots of key information and easy and clear to navigate.”

Fiona Moss, Head of Health Improvement and Equalities, Glasgow City HSCP added: “Health and Education staff continually work to ensure high quality health and well-being learning and supports are developed and delivered in all our schools in Glasgow. This new Health and Wellbeing App brings together all the evidence, information and resources on well-being for teaching and learning support staff in the city in a very accessible way. We’re really pleased to offer the app as part of the 21st century learning and appreciate that it’ll also be a valuable resource beyond local schools.”

Carolyn Davren, Lead Officer for Health and Wellbeing, Glasgow City Council Education Services said: “We’re delighted that the HWB app is now available for our staff working in early years, primary and secondary establishments. We hope that this digital resource will provide staff with improved skills, knowledge and understanding when delivering the totality of the health and wellbeing curriculum. This in turn will provide our learners across the city with enhanced learning experiences.”

The app has been developed as part of the Scottish Government’s Right Decision Service. 

Ann Wales, Programme Lead for Knowledge and Decision Support commented: “The Right Decision Service is the national decision support platform for Scotland’s health and social care. It provides a Once for Scotland suite of tools and interfaces for building decision support solutions that link validated evidence and the needs of individual citizens. It supports practitioners and citizens to make the right decisions about health and care at the right time. The Right Decision Service is being used across Scotland to deliver guidance, pathways and wellbeing information through web and mobile apps and to integrate evidence-based prompts into care records.” To find out more, contact the Programme Lead for Knowledge and Decision Support at ann.wales@dhi-scotland.com.”

This project was developed in partnership with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Public Health Scotland, Right Decision Project, Glasgow City Council and Tactuum.