Case Study: Dorset Mental Health Forum

Dorset Mental Health Forum is an independent charity and social justice movement with over 70 employees. Their focus is around promoting mental health wellbeing, recovery and understanding in Dorset by running an education centre to support people with recovery, employment and educational needs.

Dorset Mental Health Forum has, so far, had four members of staff join Happy’s leadership programmes – three on the Level 3 Team Leader or Supervisor Apprenticeship and one on the Level 5 Operations and Departmental Manager Apprenticeship. All three of the level 3 learners completed the course with a distinction, the highest possible grade they could achieve. 

"It felt like she was invested in our learners"

“We wanted an opportunity for our operational management team to validate their existing skills and learn new ones. We are a unique organisation with a unique approach, and the work we do doesn’t always translate into other environments,” explains Sarah. 

“It took us a long time to find a training provider that was very vocal and clear about the importance of a values-based approach to leadership and whose values aligned with our own. 

“Our Level 3 facilitator, Janet, went over and above what was required, and it felt like she was invested in our learners as we were. That really made a big difference, and I’m not sure we would have got that same level of support from a different training provider. We couldn’t have gotten to where we are now without Happy being as invested as we were in the learners.”

Working with Happy has had many benefits for the learners at Dorset Mental Health Forum, such as improving their project teams to be truly self-managing.

“It has been quite validating in terms of some of the structures, systems and processes that we had in place. It has also enabled us to query and explore some of the areas where we hadn’t disseminated or devolved responsibility. 

“For example, devolved budgets are not something that we had done in our organisation, because of the complex ways that our charity is funded and supported. The programmes really got us thinking about what it would look like to devolve a bit more budget responsibility to our project teams and explore tools and resources we perhaps wouldn’t have done otherwise. 

“The Level 3 and Level 5 facilitators, Janet and Sarah, have a lot of resources that they shared with our learners and our learners then brought these into our organisation. We approached these with curiosity, and shared and explored that. The main benefit has been creating that shared learning environment, and being able to draw on the resources that Happy brought in.”

Sending several learners onto the programmes strengthened their team

Happy recommended sending several learners onto the programmes, as at Dorset Mental Health, this created a culture of learning and sharing ideas between teams.

“The programmes created a sense of community amongst the learners. We would recommend having more than one learner going through the programme, because that peer support element was really helpful,” says Sarah. 

“We saw learners taking what they were getting from Happy and exploring how they could make it fit for themselves and the context of our organisation. They were also able to support each other and boost each other’s confidence about the material.  Over time, we did see their confidence grow and develop, but it wasn’t a linear process.”

What to know before you attend a programme

Is there anything that Sarah believes prospective employers and learners need to know before they attend the programme?

“I think it’s important for employers to understand their responsibilities as well as the learner’s responsibilities, and plan for the capacity that will take. 

“Don’t go into it expecting that your only investment is to release the learners for the learning days and study days. Your investment is going to involve generating opportunities for learners to develop all the knowledge, skills and behaviours required of the course by teaching learners how budgets are managed within your organisation. 

“You need to approach the programme with an open mind and understanding that the capacity you need to be able to commit to, is broader than just the 20% off-the-job training. This must be a partnership between you as the organisation, the learner and the training provider, to get the most out of the programme.”

Feedback from Dorset Mental Health Learners 

“You [Janet] have made the learning enjoyable and accessible and so, I have retained a lot of the knowledge.”

“Thank you for making the experience so enjoyable and rewarding." - Chris Jones, Peer Lead for Digital at Dorset Mental Health

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