Our story
Founded by psychotherapist Rebecca Howard, our story began five years ago and has been a journey of creating an evidence-based mental health and wellbeing resource that people can trust to help them think well, feel well and be well.
Rebecca believes everyone has the right to good mental health and access to support whenever they need it – and so ShinyMind’s journey began, to empower people, eradicate stigma and help as many people as we can shine their brightest.
We initially created a live mindset programme to support the mental health and wellbeing of those working in the most stressful job roles – the NHS. The ShinyMind ‘Your Mindset, Your Choice’ programme was delivered to live audiences totalling more than 3000 NHS staff… and it worked.
-
97 %
Improved Resilience -
96 %
Better stress management -
99 %
Greater positivity -
99 %
Would recommend to colleagues
Co-created
with the NHS
We wanted to share the positive impact of the ShinyMind wellbeing mindset programme far and wide, to help as many people as possible.
So, with evidence that it worked beyond our expectations, we decided to create an app to give people 24/7 support and access to our evidence-backed wellbeing tools and masterclasses. Then, to ensure it worked for real people, we co-created ShinyMind with staff of the Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust from all levels, for a whole year, to build and co-create a wide-ranging and holistic app that provided real wellbeing and mental health benefits.
ShinyMind works to…
Organisations with ShinyMind have reported reduced stress-related absence, improved team work and morale, as well as staff feeling happier, less stressed and more in control.
ShinyMind also promotes positivity, purpose and connection within teams through Positivity Posts and interactive messaging functionality that leave people feeling valued and happier in their roles.Â
Eminent members of the profession from academia and practice make up our Nursing Advisory Board, and have joined forces with ShinyMind as champions and ambassadors to combat burnout in nursing, as well as to tackle current retention and recruitment issues.Â
The Primary Care Nursing Lead for NHS England and Improvement is now seconded to ShinyMind for a second year by the Chief Nursing Officer as a Nursing Retention and Liaison Lead to build and launch a nursing version of ShinyMind.
Clinicians and nurses have been leading trials to build evidence to prove ShinyMind can also work to improve mental health and wellbeing of their patients, as it has done so for them.
After six weeks:
- 60% of patients reported feeling better and would like to keep the app
- 83% think other people would benefit from using the app
- 28% improvement in life satisfaction scores
- Significant improvement in General Anxiety scoresÂ
This has led to the launch of ShinyMind as a wellbeing prescription in the NHS to support patients with anxiety, depression and long terms conditions, and creating a virtuous circle of support for both staff and patients.
Trusted partner to the NHS
And as a trusted partner to the NHS and its nursing workforce, it wasn’t long before other organisations wanting to support the mental health and wellbeing of their employees came to us for help.
ShinyMind now works across the public sector and with businesses who are serious about promoting positive mental health for their staff. We are proud that organisations who partner with us see their staff feeling happier, less stressed and more productive.
Meet the Nursing Advisory Board
Dr Joan Myers OBE, QN
has over 35 years’ experience in nursing as a strategic nurse leader, consultant and educator in community children’s nursing services across London. Joan is a multi-award winning nurse and has received an OBE for services to children and nursing in the Queens Birthday honours’ list in 2013. She is a Queen’s Nurse and has a honorary doctorate from Middlesex University. Joan was voted one of the top 50 most influential BME figures in the NHS by the HSJ in 2020 and 2021.
Robin Shohet
is the Founder of the Centre for Supervision and Team Development, a leading training organisation which draws on learning from psychology, psychotherapy, group dynamics, inter-subjectivity, appreciative enquiry and systems thinking.
Prof. Steve Hams MBE
is the Chief Nursing Officer North Bristol NHS Trust, visiting professor at Worcester University and is a Florence Nightingale Foundation scholar. Steve has been a registered nurse for more than 25 years, having initially specialised in coronary care, and has held roles in the NHS, voluntary sector and higher education.
Marsha Jones
is the Director of Nursing and Safeguarding at North East London ICB. She was also the Director of Quality/Clinical Lead for PSIRF Implementation at South West London ICS and Deputy Chief Nurse at Epsom and St Helier Hospitals. Additionally, Marsha is a trained secondary school science teacher, registered nurse, and practising midwife, with over 20 years of experience in the NHS across acute, maternity, community, commissioning, and national roles. She is a founder member of the Caribbean Nurses and Midwives Association (CNMA) UK and a Senior Leader at the Society of African and Caribbean Midwives (SoAC).
Pippa Gough
has a background in nursing, midwifery and health visiting and was Director of Policy Unit for the Royal College of Nursing. She is currently a trustee and vice chair of the NSPCC and independent member of the People Committee at the Alzheimer’s Society, as well as an executive coach working in leadership and organisational development.
Janet Thornley
is the Strategic GPN Lead for Bedford, Luton and Milton Keynes ICS with over 39 years of nursing experience. She is also a faculty member of NAPC.
Joanne Bosanquet MBE
formerly Deputy Chief Nurse for PH England, Joanne was appointed CEO of the Foundation of Nursing Studies in 2019. She was awarded an MBE for services to nursing & healthcare June 2013, an honorary Doctorate from the University of Greenwich, Fellowship of the Queen’s Nursing Institute and a Visiting Professorship at the University of Surrey in 2017. In October 2021, she was awarded an Associate role at the King’s Fund & Fellowship of the Royal College of Nursing in June 2022.
Prof. Brian Dolan OBE
is the Director and Co-Founder of the development consultancy Health Service 360. He is also a Visiting Professor of Nursing at the Oxford Institute of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Research and Honorary Professor of Leadership in Healthcare at the University of Salford.
Rebecca Howard FRSA
Rebecca Howard FRSA is an award-winning entrepreneur, leadership psychotherapist, and experienced executive coach with over 17 years in NHS leadership development. As CEO and Founder of ShinyMind, she has developed a mental health and wellbeing app co-designed with the NHS. Backed by science, ShinyMind offers over 150 masterclass exercises and tools proven to reduce stress and anxiety, improve mood, and is freely available to all NHS nurses, midwives, and HCSWs in England. ShinyMind is also more than an app, delivering bespoke psychological wellbeing programmes to support emerging nursing talent, including healthcare support workers and Internationally Educated Nurses, and pioneering Large-scale Virtual Mental Health Group Consultations to support GPs and widen access for 100+ patients.
Karen Storey
is a Queen’s Nurse and former Primary Care Nursing Lead for NHS England. Karen was formerly seconded to ShinyMind to develop digital resources to help nurses with their health and wellbeing, and has now returned to NHS England and Improvement as Community Nursing Lead. This secondment led to the successful launch of the Nursing Version of ShinyMind and helped us achieve incredible milestones.
Martin Hogan
has been a Registered Adult Nurse since 2008 and has a clinical background as a Macmillan Specialist Nurse in Acute Oncology. After the first wave of COVID, his career has been very different. He has worked for the RCN as a Senior Regional Officer for Surrey, and then moved to working within Mental Health, where he led the postgraduate portfolio in education and workforce development. During this time, he completed his Professional Nurse Advocate Course, which led him to become Lead PNA and move into a full-time Lead PNA role in the community, working four days a week within the NHS. Recently, Martin has set up his own company, the Improvement Coalition, where he is the Co-Director for Organisational Development and Consultancy.
Thank you to all our ShinyMinders!
All of this has been possible thanks to our incredible community of ShinyMinders who work with us every day to help ShinyMind be the best it can be.
