Three new services have launched to make sure school children with low-level emotional and behavioural difficulties receive the right help, at the right time, in the right place.
These services aim to make sure school children with low-level emotional and behavioural difficulties receive the right help, at the right time, in the right place. The teams’ goal is to help young people, from four to 18 years, to thrive in education and beyond, so they can reach their full potential. Providing early support reduces the risk of issues becoming worse; so, the team also aims to reduce demand on Pennine Care’s higher-level child and adolescent mental health services, freeing them up to care for those with more complex needs.
Tameside and Glossop
Phase one of Tameside and Glossop’s new young people’s mental health support team recently launched. The aim is to make sure school children with low-level emotional and behavioural difficulties receive the right help, at the right time, in the right place. The service brings together mental health clinicians from Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust with professionals from a range of VCSE (voluntary, community and social enterprise) organisations. This includes mental health charities 42nd Street, and Tameside, Oldham and Glossop Mind, leisure provider Active Tameside and the educational psychology team from Tameside Council.
The first phase has seen support from the VCSE partners’ go live, including counselling and psychosocial support – looking at how children’s social life and the way they think and behave impacts on their wellbeing. Funding has been secured to provide children with access to physical support, and an online programme called The Worry Wizard, which helps children feel more confident in managing their emotional wellbeing. To date 32 primary schools have signed to Worry Wizard, benefitting around 7,000 children.
Phase two of the service is expected to go live in the spring and will bring in support from Pennine Care’s mental health clinicians for children with more complex needs. The service is using the well-established Anna Freud link programme to develop the service and engage with key stakeholders. This will help to effectively benchmark the service against a national model called CASCADE, so young people and families get appropriate advice and help
Trafford
Mental health support teams in Trafford are delivered by two providers, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust , supporting secondary schools and Place 2 Be who support their primary schools. The teams will work closely with pupils, school staff and parents, delivering 1:1 support, group work, consultation and training. The mental health support teams will form part of their whole school approach to emotional health and wellbeing, to ensure children and young people can benefit from early support. Mental health support team leads have already been out to meet with all senior mental health leads in their phase one schools and are looking forward to working with pupils.
Wigan
These two teams are run by Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust and were launched January 14th 2022 across 22 schools for phase one. The teams will work closely with young people, school staff and parents. The mental health support teams will form part of our whole school approach to emotional health and wellbeing, to make sure young people can benefit from joined up support. The teams aim to prevent mental health difficulties developing for children and young people by supporting schools to identify and respond to emerging mental health needs, reduce stigma, develop whole school approaches to mental health, support early identification of mental health symptoms and raise awareness of self-help support and self-management strategies. Their practitioners support educational staff in Wigan to develop knowledge, skills and confidence in identifying and supporting mental health in schools. The teams are trained to offer cognitive behavioural therapy led brief (behavioural) intervention. Following suitability assessment, they can offer up to six to eight sessions of guided self-help for typically low mood, worry or anxiety symptoms.
These teams are both funded by the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership and are part of the Greater Manchester mental health in education programme. The programme aims to develop early help for mental health issues within schools and colleges; enabling staff to support students’ wellbeing and good mental health.
