Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) in schools deliver evidence-based interventions for mild-to-moderate mental health issues; support the senior mental health lead in each school or college they are assigned to, introduce or develop whole school or college approaches to mental health and well-being, give timely advice to school and college staff, and liaise with external specialist services to help children and young people to get the right support.
By September 2023, across City & Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Luton and Bedfordshire, there is an expectation that approximately 175 MHST professionals will be in post, with 80 trained Education Mental Health Practitioners (EMHP).
During this Children's Mental Health Week, Newham MHSTs are hosting a range of activities and have produced a range of resources for professionals and parents, with a focus on mindfulness, distress tolerance and strategies to cope with self-harm.
Dale Greenwood, ELFT Programme Lead for Mental Health in Schools said:
"We are working to ensure that the work MHST practitioners do all year round is valuable, timely and created and produced with young people and schools themselves.
"We want to ensure that children know there is a mental health professional available they can talk to.
"It is important we try and reduce stigma and get everyone talking about mental health, as well as raise awareness of the range of coping skills that are out there."
MHST staff are working towards a point when they will be fully equipped to work with a wider range of presentations and to ensure that young people experiencing inequalities are well supported.
Teams are embracing digital innovation as a way to support young people between 7 – 12 who are experiencing fears and phobias with the launch of Lumi Nova.
This is a CBT immersive gaming app developed by BfB labs and will allow MHST workers to reach and support more pupils than with clinicians alone.
The teams are preparing to pilot a whole school approach platform called Co.lab to assist with the collaboration between teams and education colleagues.
In March, NEL will launch the Mental Health In Education Stakeholder Group. This will be open to all delivery partners and teachers to learn and collaborate across the whole of north east London.
Working towards equity across CAMHS & NHS services
Young people who are transgender, gender diverse or questioning are leading on improvement work that started in 2022. They are working to improve the experience of young people who use our services, and to develop ways to ensure that:
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CAMHS becomes their visible ally
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Work towards ensuring that all young people can feel confident and secure in their sexuality and gender in all CAMHS and NHS spaces.
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To ensure that all CAMHS clinicians are equally confident in talking about issues related to gender.
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The programme is focused on ways to ensure referral forms are more inclusive; to ensure diverse demographics are accounted for on Rio; to co-produce training and to set up a reflective forum for all CYP Staff to take account of issues and developments concerning gender. Moving forward the programme will be reviewing clinical pathways, tier 4 inpatient policy and staff development.