WELLBEING
The Educators’ Guide to Whole-School Wellbeing
Stop Press! – Our colleague Caroline Black at Grow Daily has come on board to help us create the 2nd edition of this book, due out in 2026. Please contact Caroline at Grow Daily if you believe your school’s wellbeing journey should feature in it!
A practical guide to getting started, best practice process and effective implementation, written by Dr Denise Quinlan and Dr Lucy Hone.
While many schools understand the need to promote and protect wellbeing, they often find themselves stuck, not knowing where to start. Who’s going to run the programme? Do we need a curriculum? Shall we buy one or create our own? Which is the best wellbeing model for our school? How will we fit in the required professional learning on top of everything else we already do? Is wellbeing just another fad? How do we get students involved?
This book provides companionship through rich stories from schools around the world that have created wellbeing practices that work for their schools. It guides educators through processes that help create individualised, contextualised school wellbeing plans. With chapters addressing ‘why wellbeing?’, ‘what is “whole school?”’, change dynamics, measurement, staff wellbeing, coaching, cultural responsiveness, and how to build buy-in, it is the first of its kind.
Balancing research and practice for each topic with expert practitioner and researcher insights, this book gives schools access to best-practice guidance from around the world in a user-friendly format, designed with busy educators in mind.
What sets the Lucy and Denise apart from the many school wellbeing practitioners globally is their substantial experience working alongside diverse school groups. While many have experience in one school, few work across a multitude of very different schools and clusters, giving these practising academics a unique appreciation for effective, cross-context processes.
A list of chapters is available here.
“Everyone working in this field will want a copy of this excellent book.”
Dr Sue Roffey, Director of Growing Great Schools Worldwide
“Denise Quinlan, with broad international training, is an experienced and highly motivated positive psychology researcher and wellbeing change leader who is clearly destined to make a difference.”
George Vaillant MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Deepen your learning with the Diploma
The 11069NAT Diploma of Positive Psychology and Wellbeing comprehensively covers important wellbeing topics such as strengths, resilience, optimism, creativity and excellence. Take your career to the next level with a recognised qualification in the science of optimal performance and wellbeing.
Discover This Course“As an educator I was grappling with my work on promoting wellbeing and health as I felt I needed a stronger foundation of knowledge, evidence, skills and tools to be able to do my work effectively… To say the course is life-changing would be an understatement. I use every part of what I have learnt not only in my professional life but also in my personal life… I would encourage you to make the most of this opportunity.”
Megan Martin
Whole-School Wellbeing Training
Navigating Wellbeing Change, the online programme setting out a process to undertake whole-school wellbeing is now available for purchase through Grow Daily.
Navigating Wellbeing Change takes schools through a process of change that is also documented in The Educators’ Guide to Whole-School Wellbeing. Our colleague Caroline Black at Grow Daily has come on board to help us create the upcoming 2nd edition of this book, due out in 2026. We are excited to be updating this book that teachers have described to us as ‘their bible for wellbeing in schools’. We are working hard to make sure the 2nd edition lives up to that reputation!
Find out more at Grow Daily.
Learn from those who’ve gone before
There are three episodes of our podcast series Bringing Wellbeing to Life that we recommend to get you started:
- Building Whole-school Wellbeing with Dr Lucy Hone & Dr Denise Quinlan
- The First Three Years of a Wellbeing Agenda with Sonya Papps, Taipei European School
- Lessons from a Decade of Wellbeing Work with David Kolpak, St Peter’s School, Adelaide
We’ve Worked With Hundreds of Schools
I, along with a number of other Principals in the Bays Cluster, have had the privilege of working with Dr Lucy Hone over the past two years on a Ministry of Education funded Character Education and Wellbeing pilot programme. Lucy’s professional knowledge of positive education is outstanding. She has an innate ability to relate to a broad range of colleagues and has a sound appreciation of the complexities of schools. These qualities made her a very effect change agent in our schools and I would highly recommend her to others. Stuart Cameron, Principal, Sumner School.
Denise’s session was one of the most highly rated Keynotes at the Inaugural PENZ conference. We are looking forward to having her back again for next year’s conference. Thanks Denise for your impeccable, empathetic and practical work.
PENZ17
At our recent Year 11 Wellbeing Retreat, Lucy was one of the keynote presenters and she spoke passionately around building resilience in a real world context for our girls. Our students walked away with inspiration and tools that can be applied to their own lives, enabling them to develop self-awareness and resilience. Their feedback was resoundingly positive; her message was relevant, meaningful and inspiring.
Without reservation, we would highly recommend Lucy Hone to talk to any group – whether they be students, parents, educators – as a focus on wellbeing is absolutely vital in today’s hectic world.
Year 11 Dean, St Margaret’s College
For more than a decade, I have had the privilege of working first hand with Dr. Denise Quinlan in a wide range of venues—from elementary schools to executive leadership classrooms. She is one of the few individuals in positive psychology who have the acumen of sowing seeds of well-being by helping you to spot strengths of others— in real time– in classrooms, playgrounds and in corridor conversations. Dr. Quinlan’s approach is steeped in solid science, coalesced with compassion and spiced with whole lot of fun. She won’t do the work for you, but she will be with you to harness your strengths so that you can do the work of creating circles of wellbeing, resilience, creativity, kindness and indeed of connection.
Dr Tayyab Rashid, Clinical Psychologist, President Clinical Division, International Positive Psychology Association, and recipient of IPPA’s Outstanding Practitioner Award, 2017
Denise ran a three-day training program for our team of varied role, age, ethnicity, etc. Her attention to detail, tailoring the training to our specific needs and our story made the time extremely useful and relevant to each person in the room.
She has a warm way of communicating the science of well-being to people with varied knowledge and experiences of Positive Psychology.
There was a general consensus that we left the training wiser, more connected and energised for our work with young people. I would unreservedly recommend Denise as a trainer, coach, mentor, facilitator and educator of well-being, resilience and Positive Psychology.
Paul Tupou-Vea, Dilworth Rural Campus, Te Haerenga.
The New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing and Resilience is well qualified to make sure that schools get access to wellbeing training, support and resources that are backed by rigorous science, appropriate for your cultural context, and that understand the realities of NZ schools. Denise Quinlan, with broad international training, is an experienced and highly motivated positive psychology researcher and wellbeing change leader who is clearly destined to make a difference.
George Vaillant MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School and Cofounder of Positive Psychology, University of Pennsylvania.
Dr Denise Quinlan has been a powerful advisor and mentor to the development of Positive Education and all related well-being and resilience programmes at King’s College. Since the formal inception of Positive Education at King’s in 2013, Denise has been a critical friend, mentor and facilitator. Her research-based expertise goes well beyond her professional knowledge – it is also her warm and engaging manner which sees her training practice informed with authentic care and commitment.
Initially it was the concept of Positive Psychology that was introduced, but Denise’s passion for broader wellbeing principles, along with a firm belief in the importance of connection and values, has enhanced the King’s programme in ways that have helped us create a unique and powerful approach. This is used in the classroom, in the Student Mentoring Programme, and the work of the Staff Wellbeing Working Group and our Student Advisory Panel. Denise has really become a vital part of the King’s community and my colleagues truly value her sincere and enthusiastic commitment to our school and our wellbeing aims.
Grant McKibbin, Head of Positive Education, King’s College, Auckland.
Denise has a warm manner, and her approach puts people at ease. She is very skilled in drawing information out, helping us to reflect positively. Denise demonstrates a thorough understanding of Wellbeing and was able to offer suitable models for us to explore. The webinar was well thought out with a slide presentation sent ahead of time to allow us to be conversant with terminology and direction. The presentation is all Kiwi – with language and meaning for us in our sector – i.e. it can be applied in a specialist sector just as well as the mainstream/general education sector. We feel confident that Denise has the skills and empathy/understanding that pertains to us… particularly as we work in a vastly different sector.
Allenvale Special School.
Denise was a great facilitator and helped the group feel connected, valued, and supported.
The course gave a great balance of challenge, relevance, feedback and enjoyment. Denise was such a great source of knowledge – thank you!
Participants from the LGI Diploma in Positive Psychology.
Hornby High School has engaged with Lucy Hone supporting staff to maintain and improve their own wellbeing. Her message is authentic, well grounded in solid research, and practical. I could not recommend her highly enough. This is ground breaking work for those of us at the chalk face confronting issues of wellbeing in our daily work as a matter of course.
Robin Sutton, Principal, Hornby High School.
