Why Supporting Early Years Staff’s Wellbeing is Important

Here at Educare Nursery, we make it our priority to our staff’s well-being.

What is Wellbeing? The definition of Wellbeing is “the state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy”. It is important to recognise that wellbeing doesn’t just cover mental health, but also physical wellbeing, financial wellbeing, social wellbeing and many more.

Taking steps to improve staff wellbeing will help all staff reach their potential, giving them the tools they need to provide the best care possible to the little ones at our nursery.
It's widely known that working in the Early Years sector can be hard and demanding. By neglecting to support your staff and not considering their wellbeing, it can cause all kinds of problems for the nursery team, children and families.

Prioritising staff wellbeing in Early Years can lead to many positives such as reduction in staff sickness, positive job satisfaction, maintaining staff retention, dedicated and strong team morale, an optimistic effect on the children, and productivity growth.

As an organisation, we pride ourselves on the support we offer our staff. Although working with young children can be incredibly rewarding, we recognise that the Early Years sector is full of daily challenges. It can also be emotionally and physically tiring, especially in recent times due to the post-pandemic and cost of living crisis.

We have many procedures and incentives in place to support our staff as well as rewarding their dedication and hard work. We regularly review our procedures and incentives to ensure our staff’s wellbeing is at the heart of our policies, procedures, values and mission, as a family-run business.

We are committed to preserving the importance of staff’s wellbeing. Therefore, we are introducing additional benefits to our staff in the upcoming months. Very exciting! Have a look out on our social media platforms.  

Here are some useful links:

• MIND: Looking after your staff’s wellbeing - https://www.mind.org.uk/workplace/mental-health-at-work/taking-care-of-your-staff/useful-resources/
• GOV.UK: Early Years Practitioner wellbeing support - https://help-for-early-years-providers.education.gov.uk/get-help-to-improve-your-practice/early-years-practitioner-wellbeing-support
• Every Mind at Work: your partner not  just another service provider - https://everymindatwork.com/your-go-to-workplace-wellbeing-resources/
• Citation: How to improve staff wellbeing in early years settings - https://www.citation.co.uk/news/hr-and-employment-law/how-to-improve-staff-wellbeing-in-early-years-settings/
• Heads Together:  Changing the conversation on mental health - https://www.headstogether.org.uk/programmes/workplace-wellbeing/