Supporting Children with Mental Health Issues

It is estimated that 5,485 children and young people within Tameside suffer from a diagnosable mental health condition (August 2019). This represents just over one in ten children and young people in Tameside. It is likely that you will come across children and young people who experience a mental health condition in your working life.

Many Children and Young People suffer from emotional problems from time to time. It could be temporary (such as pressures at school or problems with friends) or something more permanent for which schools may need to seek additional support.

I-Thrive Model

All of the Greater Manchester areas have signed up to the I-Thrive Model approach in relation to children and young Adult’s mental health. The emphasis is prevention and early intervention. The principle is to support children when they need it, rather than waiting until it develops into a crisis situation.

The Thrive framework supports all children and young people’s emotional wellbeing and the I-Thrive model has five categories:

• Thriving: The majority of children and young adults will fall into this category.

  For further information around promoting well-being please visit: https://www.tameside.gov.uk/SocialCareServices/Mental-Health-and-Emotional-Wellbeing

• Getting Advice and signposting: Are children and families adjusting to life circumstances where the best intervention is within the community with additional self-support.

• Getting Help: Are children who require specific interventions focused on agreed mental health outcomes? The interventions are characterised by explicit shared understanding: (1) what a successful outcome looks like, (2) how likely this to occur by a specific date and (3) what happens if this was not achieved.

• Getting More Help: This is not conceptually different from Getting Help. The difference is a need for extensive resource allocation which requires more attention from those providing services across the locality. There is no set definition of who requires additional resources but these would be observations with children: Children can’t participate in age appropriately activity in at least one context (school, home, with peers), experience distress on a daily basis or need constant supervision.

• Getting Risk Support: This is a small group of children and their families who aren’t benefiting from evidenced based interventions, but a significant concern remains, such as children who self-harm.

  For more information please visit https://healthyyoungmindspennine.nhs.uk/thrive-model/

Spotting the Signs

There is no one sign that points to a child experiencing emotional difficulties, however one of the key signs is a notable change in the child’s behaviour that is out of character. It might be a problem at school or something more serious.

Some common signs:

• Persistent sadness (two or more weeks)
• Drastic changes in mood or behaviour
• Becoming withdrawn from activities they used to enjoy
• Changes in how they play or in their eating habits
• Missing school
• Thinking about hurting themselves
• Extreme irritability
• Difficulty in concentration
• Difficulty sleeping

What to do if a Young Person is Self-Harming?

If the situation is immediately dangerous for the child then ring 999.

If the situation doesn’t require any medical treatment then please follow the Self-Harm Pathway.

Tameside Local Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health Offer

https://www.tameside.gov.uk/SocialCareServices/Mental-Health

Tameside & Glossop HYMS Early Help Access Point

A new children’s mental health referral pathway via Multi Agency Request for Service Pathway (MARS).

The new multi-agency referral pathway has been designed as a central referral point for all services that support families, including, children’s mental health referrals across Tameside & Glossop. We will have access to good quality information from a variety of agencies which will enable joined up working and information sharing to ensure that the child receives the most appropriate support so that their needs are best met at the point of referral. Importantly families will experience one referral with a support plan being put in place following this referral.

Once a referral is received at EHAP the referral will be triaged and the most appropriate service will be identified to best meet the needs of the young person.

Referral Process

If you have any urgent concerns that you wish to discuss please contact us on 0161 716 3600.

The MARS referral form will need to be completed with as much detail as possible to help us offer the appropriate support. https://secure.tameside.gov.uk/forms/mars/f1312mars.asp

School Support

School Health Mentors can be accessed via the school nursing team.

Facebook: @schoolnursestgh

Instagram: tamesidesntgh

School Health Advice Line 0161 366 2317

Improving your understanding

There are some excellent resources for you to improve your understanding of emotional/mental difficulties experienced by children and young people;

Mental Health Foundation

The Mental Health Foundation provides a range of publication and, podcasts for professional development, to gain a better understanding of mental health.

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk

Mentally Healthy Schools

The Anna Freud School provides resources for schools in developing a mental healthy school.

https://www.mentallyhealthyschools.org.uk/

The Royal College of Psychiatrists

The Royal College of Psychiatrists have produced lots of information about emotional and mental health issues for parents. It covers a wide scope of items such as dealing with tantrums to depression in children.

https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mental-health/parents-and-young-people

Young Minds

The Young Minds website provides lots of useful advice around mental health, with contact details and an urgent phone number for parents and carers.

https://youngminds.org.uk/

Mind Ed for families

This is a really useful tool for parents and families to get more information to support children. It contains information about all types of emotional difficulties and dealing with variety of issues.

https://mindedforfamilies.org.uk/young-people

UK Trauma Council

A newly launched resource that aims to support professionals, communities and policy makers through developing resources, guidance and training in responding to traumatic events that impact on children and young people.

They want to see a world where people and communities are knowledgeable, skilled and confident in nurturing and protecting children and young people who have experienced trauma. This will be a UK hub for collaboration and dissemination of trusted information and training.

https://uktraumacouncil.org/about