Salford Mental Health Support Team

Overview

Thrive in Education includes representatives from Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust’s CAMHS i-Reach Service, 42^nd Street, Place2Be, Salford City Council’s Educational Psychology team and Early Help Schools Co-ordinators as a core offer with an extended offer from, Salford Integrated Youth Service, Salford Schools Sports Partnership, SEND Leaders, Integrated Community Response service, and 0-19 Young People’s Health Service. Salford City Council provide dedicated project managers for many of the delivery streams and pilots such as the 16+ offer and relational approaches to education which is a huge advantage of the Salford model as there is a strong ethos of team work and cohesion.

Since the initial launch in March 2020, the teams have continued to work collaboratively to expand and establish the mental health support team offer with more than 50 education settings in receipt of an established offer encompassing primary, secondary, 16+ and specialist education settings.

Whole School and College Approach

The team are committed to delivering the 3 key functions of the mental health support team model and have termly Thrive In Education meetings with each school mental health lead, supporting schools to develop action plans, complete wholes school audits and facilitate a joined up approach to wellbeing, emotional and mental health.

There is a wealth of opportunities to access specialist mental health training for targeted groups of staff or whole school delivery. The teams wide range of qualified and skilled professionals support school with crisis response, staff wellbeing, Senior Leadership Support, as well as supporting parents, webinars on low mood, anxiety and neuro diversity. Teams work collaboratively to deliver joint training to ensure we are giving consistent messages to the schools and education settings we work with.

Consultation

Numerous consultation offers are available from all teams with Early Help School Co-ordinators providing weekly sessions in each of the 4 locality areas, as well as monthly individual consultations from the I-Reach team to explore supporting children, young people and families who may benefit form individual mental health interventions or signposting to appropriate services.

The team have an established consultation offer for schools where a young person has presented at Accident & Emergency following a mental health crisis or exacerbation of risk. This is an offer provided for all Salford schools and is an excellent opportunity to support school to understand and manage risk concerns as well as maintaining communication between services at a crucial time.

Monthly consultation is also provided to both a primary and secondary Pupil Referral Units with a focus on staff wellbeing and supervision. The team also support the co-facilitation of a monthly Self Harm Community of Practice,

The Educational Psychology Team have a multitude of offers that builds on their long established Emotionally Friendly Settings programme providing the foundations of all the work we plan and deliver with schools. There is an accreditation process which is supported by all services as well as an annual conference to celebrate Salford’s commitment to emotional and mental wellbeing in schools.

1:1 Interventions

The blended model of delivery provides choice for young people who may benefit from a counselling, psycho social, parenting or Low Intensity CBT informed therapeutic offer. As the teams have developed, there are also staff who are able to provide interventions for young people with higher intensity needs but this offer is limited at the moment as teams are still in the early stages of development only 5 years into establishing the mental health support team model.

The i-Reach team offer daily duty sessions for young people, parents and professionals, triaging all referrals and offering engagement calls with parents to explore issues of concern following referrals, They also attend core CAMHS daily ‘huddle’ risk meetings to ensure there is an integrated approach to risk management as well as supporting young people to access the most appropriate interventions.

Pilots and Identified Local Need

Summer transition projects from Year 6 to 7 have been established for more than 6 years with a joined up approach between i-Reach, Salford Youth Service and the Schools Sports Partnership. This offer is open to pupils from all Salford Primary Schools.

The team have adapted the offer to meet the needs of local populations including the Orthodox Jewish Community and members of the Gypsy Roma Traveller Community. More recently we have been developing a BAME specific outreach role to engage with young people who may struggle to access mainstream services.

In 2025 i-Reach are part of a pilot offer working with Salford Youth Service and the Elective Home Education Team to support the transition back to school for pupils in Key Stage 3. The summer group activities will take place in Salford Forrest School which is offered as part of the RHS gardening projects and is an established joint offer for young people from the LGBTQ+ community facilitated by Salford Youth Service and i-Reach.

The team have been a core part of the delivery of the Greater Manchester, Neuro Diversity in schools pilots working as part of a multi-agency team including SEND Leaders, Salford Learning Support Service, Salford Parent Carer Group, Educational Psychology and MFT Engagement Practitioners. The pilot is approaching its third year of delivery in September 2025 and is continuing to evaluate and reflect on successes engaging schools to establish whole school approaches to supporting neuro diversity.

Continuing professional development, supervision and research is also a core focus of the team with ongoing CPD for staff along with monthly Supervision Of Supervision, involvement in national research trials (BAY, Co-CAT, STAR CAT) and commitment to providing evidenced based interventions, ROMS and co-production with children young people and families.

Other pilots the team are involved in include outreach to the youth service, The Body Project, integrated pathways with the Gaddum Centre and links with the Neuro Developmental pathway. The team also attend numerous multi agency panels chaired by Salford Education Leads including, Access2 Education, Schools of Concern and Emotionally Based School Non-Attendance support.