Trailblazer Programme | Mental Health Support Teams in Schools
www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/cyp/trailblazers/
Over the last number of years, we have had the opportunity to take part in a national programme to help make mental health support for children and young people more available when they need it.
Initially, we were one of several schools from Cheltenham, Gloucester and the Forest of Dean who work with the NHS in Gloucestershire to introduce Mental Health Support Teams into schools.
Since then, Beech Green Primary School has continued to work with statutory health providers who deliver mental health service support to pupils within our school. These teams provide valuable support to our pupils to help them with life’s ups and downs, for example, with issues such as anxiety, friendship concerns, exam stress and challenging behaviour.
This can involve group work and/or individual, one-to-one support, either at school or elsewhere. Where appropriate, the Mental Health Support Team will also link up with the specialist mental health services in Gloucestershire. They will also support parents and teachers to help children and young people who are experiencing difficulties.
This support has proven invaluable and since September, we have joined a small group of schools who, as part of the pilot phase, are able to access the Multi-Agency Navigation Hub, a service exploring a joined-up approach to accessing support: mental health, wellbeing & education.
The following statement (which can be found on the glosfamilies directory website) explains more about this service:
“We are fortunate to have lots of support services in Gloucestershire, but we acknowledge that each service has a different referral route and navigating such a complex system can be confusing. It can also be frustrating for those reaching out for help to be passed around different services before the right help is found.
Schools and GPs can play an important role in identifying the signs of emotional wellbeing and mental health concerns and parents/carers often see schools and teachers as the first point of contact when raising concerns about their child’s behaviours. Sometimes, mental health problems can express themselves in behaviours and often this can pose risks to a child’s education. This strong connection between mental health and learning shows how important it is that health and education services work closely together to plan the most effective way of improving children and young people’s mental health, wellbeing and education together.
This is why we’ve set up a partnership of professionals from across a range of support services to collectively review requests for help. This simplified single route, enables children, young people, families, carers and professionals to access the most appropriate support based on their needs, eliminating the requirement for young people to repeat their story to multiple different services.
Locally, and for the purposes of the pilot, we have termed this as the Multi-Agency Navigation Hub”
If you have any further questions or concerns about well being or mental health, or would like to make a referral to the service, please contact Mrs Sharon Weeks, who is our Lead on Social, Emotional and Mental Health.