It is normal to experience emotional wellbeing issues as a child and with the right support and coping skills these issues usually self-resolve. However, for some children and young people they do not have the resources in place to cope with emotional wellbeing issues. Healthy Minds Lincolnshire and the Mental Health Support Teams believe that education staff are ideally placed to listen to young people and identify emotional wellbeing problems, offer non-stigmatising advice and guidance, be positive adult role models and know when to refer for specialist support.
Did you know?
- 1 in 9 children have low well-being.
- The proportion of children unhappy with their school lives has leapt from 1 in 11 ten years ago to 1 in 8.
- UK children’s happiness with their lives continues to decline.
- Over half of parents and carers feel that the pandemic has had a negative impact on the education of their children.
We want to make it easier for you to get the inforamtion you need by providing clear, straightforward information about ways you can support young people you are working with.
Future in Mind
Future in Mind: promoting, protecting and improving our children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing (2015) sets out a number of proposals that the government wished to see implemented by 2020. These include:
- Tackling stigma and improving attitudes to mental illness.
- Introducing more access and waiting time standards for services.
- Establishing ‘one stop shop’ support services in the community.
- Improving access for children and young people who are particularly vulnerable.
This is to be achieved through improved joint working between different services such as NHS, local authority and schools.
Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision
Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision: a green paper (2017) sets out measures to improve mental health support for children and young people. The focus of the green paper is on earlier intervention and prevention, especially in and linked to schools and colleges. The proposals include:
- Creating a new mental health workforce of community-based mental health support teams.
- Every school and college will be encouraged to appoint a designated lead for mental health.
- A new four-week waiting time for NHS children and young people’s mental health services to be piloted in some areas.
All of the guidance clearly identifies the need for early intervention to prevent problems from escalating into adulthood. Young people with mental health problems are more likely to experience problems in their future employment with various longitudinal studies suggesting long term impact on economic activity, receipt of benefits, income and continuous employment.
There is clear evidence that schools and colleges can and do play a vital role in identifying mental health and emotional wellbeing needs at an early stage and are in an ideal place to support young people experiencing problems without the stigma of mental health services.
Children and young people who experience mental health problems are more likely to experience increased disruption to their education, take time off school and be subjected to exclusions than children with no mental health problems.
Whole School Approach
Whole-school approaches involve bringing together senior leaders, governors, teachers and all school staff, as well as parents, carers and the wider community, including health and voluntary services, to signpost and support children and young people. Whole-school approaches have been found to improve student attendance and attainment.
A model depicting the ‘Whole School Approach’ was created as part of the ‘Promoting children and young people’s emotional health and wellbeing. A whole school and college approach’ (Public Health England 2015). It demonstrates how schools can affect positive change to achieve a whole school approach to emotional wellbeing and good mental health.
Mental Health Support Team (MHST)
MHSTs were first launched in 2018 to enhance the recommendations set out in the Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision: a green paper (2017). The programme is jointly led by NHS England and Improvement, the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care. It is also supported by Health Education England and Public Health England. The programme is being rolled out in “waves”, aiming to have rolled out the new approach to 35% of schools in England by 2023.
The three core functions of an MHST are to:
- Provide CBT informed early interventions for mild to moderate mental health and emotional wellbeing issues, such as anxiety, behavioural difficulties or friendship issues, to pupils.
- Provide training and support to staff working in the designated school or college setting.
- Support schools develop a whole system approach to promoting good mental health and positive emotional health.
The MHST Project is a growing development across Lincolnshire. To find out if your school is attached to an MHST, please speak with your Designated Mental Health Lead.
A new role has been created that forms the basis of all MHSTs; the Education Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP). The EMHPs are trained in cognitive behavioural approaches as well as the Whole School Approach.
National Children’s Bureau (NCB) Partnership for wellbeing and mental health in schools - framing principles
The NCB paper provides a comprehensive self-assessment and improvement tool for school leaders ‘A whole school framework for emotional well-being and mental health. Supporting resources for school leaders.’
Adopt whole-school thinking
- Take a whole school approach and implement it carefully.
- Start with a positive and universal focus on wellbeing.
- Develop a supportive school and classroom climate and ethos.
- Identify difficulties and intervene early.
- Take a long-term approach.
- Promote the wellbeing of staff and tackle staff stress.
Engage the whole community
- Promote pupil voice and peer learning.
- Involve parents, carers and families.
Prioritise professional learning and staff development
- Understand risk and resilience.
- Respond actively to problems and difficulties.
- Understanding child and adolescent development.
- Help all pupils with predictable change and transition.
Implement targeted programmes and interventions (including curriculum)
- Use a range of leaders for specific programmes.
- Teach social and emotional skills.
Develop supportive policy
- Provide clear boundaries and robust policies.
- Connect appropriately with approaches to behaviour management
- Understand the causes of behaviour and respond wisely.
Implement targeted responses and identify specialist pathways
- Provide more intense work on social and emotional skills development for those with difficulties.
- Use specialist staff to initiate innovative and specialist programmes.
- Provide clear pathways of help and referral including CAMHS.
Fear of the unknown:
It is common for professionals to be worried about talking to people regarding their mental health/emotional wellbeing. These are some of the concerns that we have heard:
- What if I say something that makes the problem worse?
- I don’t know anything about mental health, what if I can’t answer their questions?
- What if they get really distressed and I don’t know how to help them?
- What if I say something which ‘opens a can of worms’ and I won’t know what to do?
Think about a time when you have struggled emotionally – what is it that you needed from others at that time? Most people just want someone to listen to them, really listen – to validate that they are struggling, not to make judgements and not to make assumptions about how they feel.
Supporting people with emotional needs is not about having the answers and solutions to their problems; it is about providing a safe space and enabling the young person to find solutions that work for them.
If you don’t know the answer to something, admit that you don’t know. There are lots of agencies that can offer support to you or the child/young person if they need specialist advice.
Remember there are no magic words to make someone feel better. It can take time for someone to cope and find resolutions to the situation they are in before they feel differently emotionally.
If you feel the young person is a risk to themselves or others, you need to advise the young person that you need to make a plan to keep them safe. This would involve informing carers, ensuring the young person is kept safe until a carer can arrive, suggesting distracting techniques that the young person may find useful (listening to music, playing computer games, looking at YouTube videos). Professionals can contact the Lincolnshire Here4You Advice Line 0800 234 6342 for support/guidance. If it is an emergency, please contact 999.
Emotional wellbeing – Looking after yourself
For you to be able to support others with their emotional wellbeing you need to be able to look after your own. Like anything else worth having, maintaining good emotional wellbeing takes effort.
The Basics
- Are you getting enough sleep?
- Are you getting enough exercise?
- Are you eating a balanced diet?
- Are you moderating your alcohol/caffeine/sugar consumption?
- What are your relationships like? Are there things you could do to improve your relationships? Who would you talk to if you needed support?
If not this could have a significant effect on your own emotional wellbeing.
Coping skills
- How do you deal with stress, or unexpected difficulties?
- Be solution focused, not problems focused.
- What are your strengths? How have you achieved things before?
- Make your own action plans – keep on track.
- Ask for help if you need it.
Resilience
Resilience is not just your ability to bounce back, but also your capacity to adapt in the face of challenging circumstances, whilst maintaining a stable mental wellbeing. Resilience isn't a personality trait – it's something that we can all take steps to achieve. (Mind, 2017)
Are you resilient?
- How do you cope with unexpected issues?
- Do you have good understanding of your life and what needs to improve to become more resilient?
Robertson Cooper Model explores four areas that are considered necessary to be resilient to life’s stressors.
The Resilience Work Wheel and Resilience Life Wheel is a simple self-reflection tool that you can use to examine your own resilience in relation to work or your life. Very simply, score each area on a scale of 0-10 and join up the dots to create a current pattern. You can then plot a chart of where you would like to see yourself in the future and make a plan of what you need to do to reach your goals.
Resources
Here is a range of resources that can support different emotional wellbeing concerns. The NHS has no control over the contents of these sites or resources. They have not been tested or assessed by the NHS.
These have been broken down based on target user, this is not to mean that other demographics would not benefit from the content included.
Resources for education staff
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Resources for young people
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Resources for parents
Youngminds.org.uk – parent help line
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In Lincolnshire we provide a range of services to help children, young people and their families with their emotional wellbeing and mental health. Before referral professionals can seek advice from the Lincolnshire Here4You Advice Line on 0800 234 6342. If it is an emergency, please contact 999.
For more information on how to refer please review our 'Service offer and referrals' webpage.
