Wellbeing Where It Counts
SWISS is a certification standard for school wellbeing and institutional safety. Schools implement five pillars across a school year and are audited against them annually.
Source: Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India 2024, National Crime Records Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs, released May 2026.
The rise runs against the national direction: all recorded deaths by suicide fell 0.4% in 2024, while student deaths rose. Across five years the student figure is up 15.7% against 11.6% for all recorded deaths, and the student share has moved from 8.2% to 8.5%.
Schools sit closest to this. Distress shows up in attendance, marks, friendships and behaviour long before it reaches a clinician, and it shows up in front of teachers.
If you need support right now
- Tele-MANAS14416National helpline
- Vandrevala Foundation1860 266 234524x7
- iCALL9152987821Counselling
- Childline1098Children in need
- Emergency112All emergencies
The Duty of Care
Student wellbeing has moved from good practice to a documented obligation on the institution
Counsellor Requirement
Sukdeb Saha v. State of Andhra Pradesh, 2025 INSC 893, 25 July 2025. Institutions with 100 or more enrolled students require a qualified counsellor, psychologist or social worker.
The Reporting Duty
AAA v. Linda Sema & Ors., 2026 INSC 675. A disclosure received directly from a child is knowledge under Section 19(1). Verification follows a report; it does not precede it. Liability attaches to the adult who received the disclosure.
Employer Obligations
Internal Committee formation, an external member, annual return filing and staff awareness apply to every school as an employer.
Data Fiduciary Duties
Substantive obligations become enforceable on 13 May 2027. Schools act as Data Fiduciary, and readiness work starts now.
For CBSE schools, the counsellor and wellness staffing circulars of January 2026 and February 2026 apply in addition. For ICSE, CISCE and IB schools, the Supreme Court order is the board-neutral anchor.
The Capacity Gap
What Schools Have
- Teachers who spend more than 1,000 contact hours a year with the same children
- A counsellor, in many schools one, for the whole enrolment
- Committees constituted on paper
- Goodwill, and a great deal of it
What Is Missing
- Training for the adults who see the warning signs first
- A written escalation route every staff member knows
- An incident record that survives a change of principal
- Independent verification that any of it is operating
SWISS addresses the second column. The counsellor stays the clinician; the teaching staff become the layer that notices early and refers correctly.
What Is SWISS?
A certification standard for school wellbeing and institutional safety, accredited by the CPD Standards Office UK (Provider #50828)
Student
Comprehensive support systems for student mental wellness
Wellness
Holistic wellness programs integrating physical and emotional health
Institutional
School-wide frameworks creating safe learning environments
Safety
Crisis prevention and intervention protocols
Standards
Evidence-based benchmarks ensuring consistent quality
The CARE Standard
Consistent
The same standard applies in every certified school
Auditable
Evidence a board or an inspector can examine
Replicable
Repeatable across campuses and school networks
Enduring
Survives staff turnover and a change of principal
The Five Pillars
Teacher Gatekeeper Certification
Three modules, self-paced, an indicative six hours per staff member. Whole teaching staff certified in recognising warning signs, responding, referring and reporting.
Quarterly Teacher Labs
Three sessions of two hours across the school year: psychological safety, burnout prevention, difficult conversations.
Policies Toolkit
Psychological Safety Policy, Grievance Redressal Mechanism and Anti-Harassment policy, drafted for the school and adopted formally.
Wellness Council
A five-member trained team, written protocols, an incident register and an annual simulation exercise.
Crisis Response and Support
Rapid response and structured recovery support for certified schools during an incident.
Platform access, anonymous reporting, the annual student workshop and the annual parent session are included with SWISS Essentials and above.
The Gatekeeper Series
Three self-paced online modules. Each staff member completes one age-banded mental health module and the Child Safety module, an indicative six hours in the year, recorded per person on the school dashboard.
Foundational Track
Mental health first aid for early years: behavioural change, regression, somatic presentation, school refusal, attachment disruption, safe conversations with a young child, referral to the school counsellor.
CPD accreditation in progressSecondary Track
Suicide prevention: warning signs, risk recognition, direct enquiry, crisis response, safe messaging, referral and handover, examination-period pressure, educator self-care.
CPD UK accredited, Provider #50828Child Safety (POCSO)
The reporting duty under Section 19 and the penalty under Section 21, why no internal enquiry may precede a report, the referral route to the Special Juvenile Police Unit, police, Childline 1098 and the Child Welfare Committee, safe adult conduct.
CPD accreditation in progressDelivered in English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, with further languages in development. Non-teaching staff take the Child Safety module together with the mental health module matched to the age group they principally work with.
Gatekeeper training, meta-analysis of 16 randomised controlled trials (Liu et al., 2025, BMC Public Health): knowledge 0.72, self-efficacy 0.73, preparedness 0.69 (standardised mean differences).
Four Routes, Each Containing the One Before It
SWISS Foundation
Whole-Staff CertificationGatekeeper certification across the three modules, with recognition rather than the Seal.
- Whole-staff Gatekeeper certification
- CPD certificate per teacher
- E-learning access for the school year
- MSS counsellor access for the school term
- Foundation recognition
SWISS Essentials
RecommendedThe default certification offer, and the tier DPS Gurgaon and DPS International run.
- Everything in Foundation, plus:
- All five pillars
- Platform access and anonymous reporting
- Annual student workshop and parent session
- One crisis activation
- Certification Seal and annual compliance audit
SWISS Compliance
Full Statutory CoverFor a school that already publicises POSH and POCSO committees and needs to evidence them.
- Everything in Essentials, plus:
- Internal Committee with external member and annual return
- Child Protection Committee and reporting protocol
- Age-banded student awareness modules
- Compliance dashboard
SWISS Complete
Inspection ReadyCompliance plus the physical safety and inspection-readiness layer.
- Everything in Compliance, plus:
- Physical safety audit suite
- NCPCR-aligned documentation
- Inspection-readiness file
A school that already publicises POSH and POCSO committees is usually better served by Compliance, which evidences what it has already announced.
The First Year
Baseline and Scoping
Readiness assessment, staff roll uploaded, Certification Coordinator named.
Whole-Staff Certification
Gatekeeper modules completed by every teacher, CPD certificates issued.
Council and Policies
Five-member Wellness Council trained, policies adopted, escalation route published.
Teacher Labs
Three sessions of two hours, plus the annual simulation exercise.
Audit and Certification
Compliance audit against the five pillars, Seal issued, renewal scoped.
Certification is annual. The audit checks that the standard is still operating twelve months on, which is the part a parent, a board or an inspector can actually rely on.
Benefits by Group
Students
- Every teacher trained to recognise distress
- Early intervention before a crisis
- A route to help that does not depend on one adult
Teachers
- Confidence in a situation they currently face untrained
- Protection through written protocols
- CPD-accredited professional development
The School
- Documented evidence of duty of care
- An incident trail that survives staff turnover
- Independent third-party certification
Parents
- A verifiable standard rather than an assurance
- Transparency on how the school responds
- Confidence in the institution's commitment
Accredited by the CPD Standards Office UK, Provider #50828. In use at DPS Gurgaon and DPS International. Institutional Safety Partner to TAISI.
Where Certification Lives
Certification is only worth what someone can verify. The portal is where a parent, a board or an inspector checks it, and where staff track their own completion.
Public Registry
Certified schools and their current certification status, listed publicly so a claim can be checked rather than taken on trust.
School Page
The public-facing page each certified school gets, showing what it runs and the standard it holds.
Staff Dashboard
Where Gatekeeper completion is recorded per staff member and CPD certificates are issued.
Powered by IntelliCare AI
An always-available AI companion for students — confidential, multilingual, with crisis-detection escalation to human counsellors
24/7 Availability
Students get support after school hours, weekends, and during exams — when counsellors aren't on campus
Multi-Language Support
Conversations in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali and more — supporting India's linguistic diversity
Crisis Detection
Trained to identify at-risk language and escalate to a human counsellor for immediate intervention
Confidential & Encrypted
Student conversations stay private; aggregate wellness insights inform school-level interventions