Leadership

Improving Children And Young People’s Mental Health Services

This report by the National Audit Office looks at the issues of parity of esteem between physical and mental health services for children and young people. It says that even if current initiatives are delivered as intended, there would remain significant unmet need for mental health services amongst young people.

The government’s current work to improve mental health support for children and young people is an important but modest step towards achieving its longer term aspirations. It includes initiatives to increase the proportion of children and young people who need support accessing NHS-funded mental health services from around 25% to 35%, estimated to be equivalent to treating an additional 70,000 children and young people per year, between 2015-16 and 2020-21. This reflects the Department’s assessment of what is possible within current funding and staffing constraints.

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      string(2749) "make good investment decisions in partnerships with childrenand young people, their families and professionals. Such an approach will also enable betterjudgements to be made about the overall adequacy of investment.Leadership BriefingLeadership Briefing – www.teachingtimes.comReports Summaries – a weeklyservice of essential summaries,in-depth reports and criticalanalysis that’s new and relevantto education, linked to originalsource documents.Next steps in 2015/16: ■ Delivering waiting times standards for Early Intervention in Psychosis by April 2016; ■ Continuing development of new access and waiting times standards for Eating Disorder; ■ Commissioning a new national prevalence survey of child and adolescent mental health; ■ Implementing the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services Minimum Dataset, whichwill include the new CYP IAPT dataset; ■ Continuing to focus on case management for inpatient services for children and youngpeople, building on the response to NHS England’s Child and Adolescent Mental HealthServices (CAMHS) Tier 4 Report; ■ Testing clear access routes between schools and specialist services for mental health byextending the recently established co-commissioning pilots to more areas; ■ Improving children’s access to timely support from the right service through developing ajoint training programme to support lead contacts in mental health services and schools.This will be commissioned by NHS England and the Department for Education and testedin 15 areas in 2015/16. DfE will also support work to develop approaches in children’sservices to improve mental health support for vulnerable children; ■ Improving public awareness and understanding of children’s mental health issues, throughcontinuing the existing anti-stigma campaign led by Time to Change and approachespiloted in 2014/15 to promote a broader national conversation; ■ Encouraging schools to continue to develop whole school approaches to promoting mentalhealth and wellbeing through a new counselling strategy for schools, alongside theDepartment for Education’s other work on character and resilience and PSHE.WEB LINKFuture In Mind: Promoting, Protecting And Improving Our Children And Young People’sMental Health And Wellbeinghttps://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/414024/Childrens_Mental_Health.pdfhttps://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/414024/Childrens_Mental_Health.pdf"
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Leadership

Promoting, Protecting And Improving Our Children And Young People’s Mental Health And Wellbeing

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Leadership

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17 Mar 2017

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      string(6004) "In 2014, the Coalition government unveiled a £2m scheme designed to get people with mental health issues playing more sport. Run by Sport England, and mental health charity, Mind; the initiative saw a wide range of sports being offered to help people with their mental health. The scheme, Get Set to Go, now runs across eight areas in London, West Midlands, the North West and the North East. Areas were chosen for their relatively high levels of inactivity and people with mental health issues. The projects are led by local Mind offices. Experts are saying that schools, too, could use sport and physical activity to help deal with the mental health problems faced by their students. Department of Health figures show that one in four people in the UK will suffer from mental health problems, in their lifetime. One in six at any given time. That’s neurotic mental health issues such as anxiety, addiction, obsession, phobia, depression. And clinical problems like bipolar disorder, personality disorder, schizophrenia, eating disorders. ‘The horrible thing about mental health issues is they can strike indiscriminately,’ says Alex Welsh, Chief Executive of the London Playing Fields Foundation. Welsh, who set up the Coping through Football project in Waltham Forest seven years ago, to help people with their mental health problems. ‘People go through life and all of a sudden something happens. Some cope better than others.’Welsh, also a Tottenham Hotspur Community coach, adds: ‘Suicide is the biggest killer of 25-28 year old men, next to road traffic accidents. He believes that there’s an over-reliance on medication as a treatment for mental health problems. The best way to help a person with mental health issues, he thinks, is to give them the support they need before the problem becomes too acute. That’s where sport comes in. And schools.Over the last few years there have been plenty of stories about famous sports players and former players, suffering from mental illness.  Frank Bruno, Dame Kelly Holmes, Gary Speed, Jonathan Trott to name a few. Sport is about highs and lows, long periods away from home, pressure to perform to maintain a place in the team, and with it, a living, the expectation of team mates, bosses, fans and the media, fear of injury, anxiety about what to do after retirement. Playing sport, for fun, with friends in the community or at school is a different matter.Chris Wright, Head of Health and Wellbeing at the Youth Sport Trust says there is a direct link between doing more high quality physical activity and improving children and young people’s emotional and mental and physical health.He says that there are 850,000 5-16 year olds in the UK with a diagnosable mental illness. ‘This manifests in bullying, cyber bullying, self-harm,’ he says and puts this figure down to changes in society, the fact that children are under more pressure to succeed at school. ‘The education system is set up so that children have to perform at one moment in time,’ he says. ‘They know that how they do will determine their future, whether they go to University, find employment. Young people less access to support and services that address some of the issues raised by this.’Chris Wright believes there is a vital role for sport and physical activity to play here. ‘Sport helps people feel better about themselves,’ he says. ‘We’ve noticed, for instance, that teenage girls who do sport become more confident about how they look and feel more positive about themselves in general.’According to Mind, research shows that outdoor exercise can reduce depression and anxiety. The charity hopes that the Get Set Go project will encourage more people living with mental health problems to take up sport. ‘Structured physical activity programmes can help people recover from a mental health problem, and stay well long term,’ says Paul Farmer, Mind’s Chief Executive.Mind’s information manager, Sam Challis, adds that for a person with mild depression or anxiety, physical activity gets the endorphins going and can lift their mood almost immediately. ‘Just being outdoors can help people,’ he says. ‘There’s light, you’re surrounded by nature, away from those more bustling environments which may hold negative associations.’Sport gives people exercise, but it also has additional benefits. Rules and conventions govern play. People perform as individuals and as part of a team. They learn, apply and develop skills, knowledge and strategies. It’s structured activity that requires participants to think about what’s going on around them. There’s always something to focus your mind on and no time to think about your problems.Sport also teaches the sort of life skills that help people with mental health issues reintegrate into society. They can learn to ignore external distractions and concentrate on the task at hand. They work towards short-term individual targets. With team mates, they also work towards longer term targets. By taking action and shutting out negative external and internal influences, they can begin moulding their future by reacting to everyday occurrences in a way that brings them what they want. Chris Wright explains that the main challenge for schools is providing the right sporting and physical activity offer. One that encourages as many children as possible to get involved and stay involved. While curriculum time PE is essential for developing children’s fundamental movement skills, children must have access to a wide range"
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Inclusion

Good Sport, Bad Sport and Children's Mental Health

17 Oct 2017

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      string(5427) "include:Challen, A. et al. (2011) UK Resilience Programme evaluation: final report. London: Department for Education.CAMHS EBPU, et al. (2011) Me and my schools: findings from the national evaluation of Targeted Mental Health inSchools 2008-2011. London: Department for Education.For schools looking at how to implement whole-school policies, promote mental health and identify services, The Childrenand Young People’s Mental Health Coalition have produced Resilience and results: how to improve the emotional andmental wellbeing of children and young people in your school.The NICE guidance on improving wellbeing in primary and secondary schools is also available.nnThe argument for early intervention isn’t just a moral one of reducing unhappinessand enabling children to fulfil their potential, it’s also financial. Low-cost parentingprogrammes for children with conduct disorders are highly effective and have beenestimated to save in the order of £10,000 per child over 25 years. The same researchshowed that £1 spent on the prevention of conduct disorders through social andemotional-based interventions in schools gives a total return of nearly £84.http://tinyurl.com/ozdltt6http://tinyurl.com/ozdltt6https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-resilience-programme-evaluation-final-reporthttps://www.gov.uk/government/publications/findings-from-the-national-evaluation-of-targeted-mental-health-in-schools-2008-to-2011https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/findings-from-the-national-evaluation-of-targeted-mental-health-in-schools-2008-to-2011http://www.cypmhc.org.uk/resources/resilience_results/http://www.cypmhc.org.uk/resources/resilience_results/http://publications.nice.org.uk/social-and-emotional-wellbeing-in-primary-education-ph12http://publications.nice.org.uk/social-and-emotional-wellbeing-in-secondary-education-ph20https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/215626/dh_126386.pdfwww.teachingtimes.com n Vol 4.3Safeguarding/Mental health and wellbeing Every Child Journal73Mental health in schoolsMost young people go to school and indeed spend a large proportion of their lives there,so it’s a key space for promoting the mental health and wellbeing of a large proportion oflocal children and young people, and, importantly ensuring that those who need it haveeasy access to specialist support.There is some evidence that suggests that young people would rather speak to theirteacher about their problems than go to their GP or a mental health professional. Thismay be because they have a good relationship with a trusted teacher but it may also bebecause they don’t know what to do, or are frightened of seeking help.So what can schools do? Partnership working is essential, particularly with localservices such as their local CAMHS, or voluntary sector services. But schools shouldn’texpect these services to do everything. For that reason, the Mental Health Children andYoung People’s Coalition produced a guidance document for schools called ‘Resilienceand Results. This document aims to encourage schools to think about how they canpromote mental health within their school and provide additional support for those withmental health problems. It includes case studies which illustrate what schools could do,and quotes from young people, parents,and teachers.Resilience and Results refers to theimportance of a whole-school approach,which requires the promotion of mentalhealth to be integrated within the ethos,routine life and core business of theschool. There is a good evidence base fora whole-school approach to promotingthe mental health and wellbeing of allstudents, and it is recommended in theNICE guidance on improving wellbeingin both primary and secondary schools.There are ten key elements that needto be applied in order to implementthis approach. Good leadership andmanagement are absolutely vital, andschools that are good at promotingmental health have headteachers whoreally see the importance of this workand how it can help them meet theirtargets around attainment, attendanceand so on. Other key elements includethe ethos within the school, supportingschool staff and helping themunderstand and promote their ownmental health, teacher training and theirunderstanding of mental health; andincluding mental health promotion in the curriculum.Mental health promotion can be covered in the personal, social, health education(PSHE) curriculum, but it should also be incorporated across the curriculum. For instance,some schools have used sport as a way to build resilience and other life skills that canbe transferred to other lessons and to young people’s lives more generally. In order toachieve this, there needs to be a whole-school approach which is led from the top, and isinvested in.Whilst PSHE provides a good opportunity to help improve children and youngpeople’s understanding of mental health and wellbeing, we hear from young peoplethat it isn’t always well taught. Ofsted has reported that 40% of schools’ PSHE"
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Special Needs

Striking a balance

21 May 2014