These awards are all about celebrating how schools are in a unique position to reach young people and have a powerful opportunity to support young people’s social, emotional, psychological and physical health. Wellbeing and learning go hand in hand, and everyone in the school community has a role to play in supporting youth mental health and the wellbeing of all its members.
Make our mission possible in 2024
We’re delighted to open applications for our 2024 Mission Possible school achievement awards.
We’re welcoming applications from teachers and school staff in primary schools, secondary schools, and further education training centres (including Youthreach) all across Ireland – and this year, we want to support you to take the great work you are already doing even further!
We understand that school staff are extremely busy and the work that you do in promoting wellbeing can be challenging, whether that’s through budget constraints, time pressures or other supports needed. So, in our 2024 awards, we’re offering you the chance to be our Walk in My Shoes (WIMS) School Ambassador, winning a €1,000 prize and a WIMS School Support Package for your school. The winner in our secondary school category will also receive one guaranteed place on our Transition Year (TY) Programme.
How to get involved
Tell us what you’re already doing
Shout from the rooftops about how amazing your school community is and how your school puts wellbeing at the forefront of everything you do with your students, teachers, parents and the whole school community.
To enter, please highlight one particular wellbeing initiative or support in your school and upload it to our School Portal.
You can show this work with a video, photograph, project, poster, leaflet, presentation, or audio recording - anything that highlights a specific wellbeing initiative or support that is part of the wellbeing activities within your school.
Keep these three things in mind when choosing which wellbeing activity to highlight:
- Your school’s creativity – we love to see your new and exciting ideas and how you action them
- The impact of the wellbeing activity - what was the outcome? We want to share your success stories!
- How you included the entire school in the activity.
Tell us what you want to do
Let us make your mission possible. Complete our short application form to explain how you would use the €1,000 prize money and the WIMS School Support Package to further your mission.
Winners in each category will receive a €1,000 prize, a role as WIMS School Ambassador and a WIMS School Support Package, which includes up to four hours of support on your wellbeing initiative from WIMS, to help you on your way. Please outline one key initiative or wellbeing activity that you would like to put in place in your school in 2025 with this support.
How to submit your application
To complete your application to Mission Possible 2024:
- Upload your entry to our School Portal
- Complete the application form (and don’t forget to link to your School Portal entry!).
If you’re not already registered to our School Portal, you can sign up to the portal here.
You can find the application form here, and there is a guide on how to use the School Portal in the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) below.
The deadline for applications has now been extended until Wednesday, 4 December 2024.
Our judging panel will look for standout initiatives that creatively raise awareness of mental health and wellbeing and reduce stigma in classrooms and school communities. The panel will also be looking for schools that showcase how their initiative had wide involvement with their school community, illustrating a whole-school approach.
The winners will be announced in February 2025, with the awards in the categories below:
- Primary school
- Secondary school
- Further Education Training Centre (including Youthreach).
Each category winner will receive prize money of €1,000, along with the WIMS School Ambassador role, WIMS School Support Package and, for the secondary school category winner, a place on our TY Programme in the 2025/26 school year. Runners-up will receive a €500 prize.
Of course, every school taking part is a winner in our eyes! We’ll be celebrating every school who enters with a certificate.
Need some inspiration?
You’re probably doing even more than you realise in the area of wellbeing promotion in your school. Have a look at the Wellbeing Policy Statement and Framework for Practice from the Department of Education and Skills, where you will no doubt find lots of things that are already happening in your school and lots of inspiration for future planning!
You can also see what other schools are doing to promote positive mental health and wellbeing by discovering what’s on our School Portal.
See what caught the attention of our 2023 Mission Possible awards and meet our 2023 winners here. You can also enjoy our Mission Possible winners archive here.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's)
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How do the awards work?
Our judges will review all applications and make a shortlist. Shortlisted schools will be announced in January 2025 and winners and runners-up announced at a ceremony in February 2025.
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What are the prizes?
Winners in each category will receive a €1,000 prize, a role as WIMS School Ambassador and a WIMS School Support Package, which includes up to four hours of support on your wellbeing initiative from WIMS and a wellbeing pack. One guaranteed place on our TY Programme in 2025/26 will also be part of the prize for the secondary school winner.
Runners-up will receive a €500 prize, a trophy and certificate. Runners-up will not act as a WIMS School Ambassador or receive consultation support or a wellbeing pack.
The Mission Possible 2024 trophies and prizes, and the runner-up prizes, will be presented at an awards ceremony in St Patrick’s University Hospital in Dublin 8 in February 2025.
Every school that submits an application will receive a Mission Possible school certificate.
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What is the WIMS School Support Package?
Winning schools will receive a wellbeing pack, including posters, Wellbeing Wall banners, and other resources and branded items your school can use to continue their wellbeing initiatives. We will also provide up to four hours of consultation support for each WIMS School Ambassador on one key wellbeing initiative.
We will aim to get back to schools within five working days and will only be available to consult on the wellbeing initiative that was originally submitted as part of your Mission Possible entry. -
What is involved in being a WIMS School Ambassador?
We want to spread the WIMS wellbeing message even further. That’s why we are giving schools the opportunity to become our WIMS School Ambassador and share your great work widely with our network. We would love for you to share the challenges, successes, resources required and key learnings so that other schools can be inspired to further their own wellbeing missions!
As our WIMS School Ambassador, you will provide us with updates on your wellbeing initiative that was planned as part of your Mission Possible application through our School Portal to share with other schools. We also share your updates on our social media channels.
Being an ambassador will involve providing at least three updates to our School Portal:- A brief outline of your project plan before starting your initiative
- A progress update while you are running the initiative
- Learnings and considerations for other schools looking to try something similar.
We would ask for these updates on the School Portal to include photos, videos or anything that helps to showcase the initiative to other schools.
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What is the guaranteed place on the WIMS TY Programme?
Our TY Programme is a one-week mental health awareness placement, conducted by clinical staff from St Patrick’s Mental Health Services, taking place each school year across five one-week periods.
Our secondary school category winner will be guaranteed one student place in our 2025/26 programme. As details of the 2025/26 programme have not been set, we reserve the right to allocate these places to whatever TY Programme or placement is taking place in that period, and we reserve the right to change or substitute the terms of this placement. -
Who can enter the Mission Possible awards?
We can accept applications from teachers and school staff in primary schools, secondary schools, and further education training centres (including Youthreach) in Ireland. Applications will close on Wednesday, 27 November 2024.
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Does my school need to pay to enter?
No, Mission Possible is free to enter for all schools in Ireland.
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Can my school enter more than once?
We can only accept one entry per school.
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My school won a Mission Possible award previously. Can we enter again?
Yes, your school can enter the competition every year, even if you won previously.
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The projects we run are with another mental health campaign. Can we include them in our entry?
Yes, absolutely. We want to celebrate all the creativity and activity going on to promote positive mental health, and these projects are an important part of that.
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When a school wins, who gets to keep the prize money?
The cheque is made payable to the school to put towards their wellbeing mission.
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How do I upload my school’s entry to the School Portal?
You can register for and log into the School Portal here.
Once you are logged in, to add your entry:- Click Upload resource
- Use the Title field to name your entry, including your school name (such as St Colmcille’s Wellbeing Wall)
- Select your school type and class levels
- Make sure to choose Mission Possible as one of the tags
- Click Choose file to upload your entry
- Fill out a brief description of your entry, this should be a maximum of 350 characters
- Use the Thumbnail Image option to upload an image to go with your entry
- Check the permissions and submit your entry
- Get your entry’s URL for the application form (see below).
Once you have submitted your entry, click the Return to resources button. You will see your entry in the resource listings. If you click on your resource name, you will be able to get a unique link or URL to the resource, which you will need for the application form.
If you have any difficulty uploading your resources to the School Portal, please don't hesitate to email info@walkinmyshoes.ie.
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Will the School Portal accept any file size?
Files being uploaded to the School Portal must be smaller than 2MB.JPEG, JPG, PNG, PDF, MP4 and MP3 files will be accepted.
The project description must be a maximum of 350 characters.
Thumbnail images must be in JPEG, JPG and PNG format and be no larger than 2MB. -
Are there any other Terms and Conditions?
We have a few terms and conditions to make sure everyone is on the same page: see the terms and conditions here.
We wish you the best of luck and we look forward to seeing your amazing ideas!
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Previous Winners