Mental health support teams
The mental health support team offer is one that’s been developed through the Government Green Paper on Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision (December 2017) and with lessons learned from the Greater Manchester rapid pilot. The Greater Manchester mental health support teams will deliver:
- NHS led teams with voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations and mental health practitioners embedded, broadening the support offer from a purely CBT-based model
- A fundamental whole school approach that aims to ensure that all members of the school can flourish and be mentally healthy thereby reducing the prevalence of mental ill health and the need for targeted interventions (PHE, 2015). It’s proactive rather than reactive and includes aspects such as leadership and management, school culture and ethos, curriculum, student voice, staff training and wellbeing, interventions and referral (PHE, 2015).
- Integration across the system with multiple organisations working together
- Low to moderate psycho-social support with one to one and group support and rapid referrals to the wider mental health system
Manchester, Oldham, Heywood Middleton & Rochdale and Salford were the Greater Manchester trailblazer sites as the first four localities to mobilise the Greater Manchester blended model of mental health support teams in the 2020/21 academic year. The Greater Manchester of mental health support team programme has now rolled out across all ten localities with teams fully operational and working in schools and colleges across the sub region. There has been increased investment since 2020 and this has helped to expand the offer to more schools and colleges and to more children every year. As of December 2024, 43% of children in education has access to a mental health support team in Greater Manchester.
Mental health support teams remain a national Government priority, with the ambition that the offer will be accessible to 100% of schools/colleges across England by 2030. We are working on plans for how Greater Manchester will continue to grow our of mental health support teams to reach this ambition of 100% coverage.
This model is made up of education mental health practitioners and mental health practitioners. It builds on of the Greater Manchester mentally healthy schools and colleges pilot which provided a blend of NHS, VCSE and education-delivered emotional health and wellbeing support in schools.
The development and mobilisation of the Greater Manchester blended model for mental health support teams is important because they are integrated teams that are able to not only treat but signpost quickly as they will be aligned to schools and colleges in each locality, and provide advice, consultation and training for education staff.
Bolton Mental Health Support Team
Bury Mental Health Support Team
Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale’s Young People’s Mental Health Support Team
Manchester Mental Health Support Team
Oldham Mental Health Support Team
Stockport Mental Health Support Team
Tameside Mental Health Support Team