Young Minds Matter Gloucestershire
The Government has been piloting new Mental Health support in schools. In December 2018, the Government announced 25 Trailblazer sites; Gloucestershire was successful in securing funding up until 2021. This funding is supporting the implementation of four Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) in Gloucestershire to develop models of early intervention on mild to moderate mental health issues, such as exam stress, behavioural difficulties or friendship issues, as well as providing help to staff within a school and college setting. As part of this pilot, 25 regions were identified as early adopters, including Gloucestershire.
Mental Health Support teams are supporting up to 8,000 children and young people in around 20 schools and colleges in their locality. Chosen Hill School is one of the early adopter participating schools.
The programme is called “Young Minds Matter Gloucestershire” (previously “Trailblazers”)
In addition, Chosen Hill School is the base for the “Young Minds Matter Gloucestershire” Mental Health Support team who will be working here and in other schools. They are based in a room in the Hub.
The Mental Health Support Team are:
- building on support already in place in school from the school counsellor, school nurse and other voluntary organisations;
- supporting students in school with mild to moderate mental health issues;
- helping students with more severe needs to access the right support, and provide a link to specialist NHS services e.g. CYPS.
There are four areas of work:
- Universal (Whole School Approach) e.g. school assemblies, developing the skills of peer listeners, delivering workshops;
- Targeted (Mild Mental Health Concerns) e.g. targeted group work for students such as in resilience, parent support groups, 1:1 Mental Health support;
- Specialist (Moderate to Severe Mental Health Concerns) e.g. Mental Health assessment of students for specialist support;
- Support for staff e.g. staff wellbeing sessions, training staff in Mental Health First Aid.
Information about consent for parents:
Chosen Hill School is required to publish important information concerning parental consent for students referred to Young Minds Matters Gloucestershire, the school counsellor, TIC+ and CAMHS. Parents are asked to read the information by clicking on the link below. Please contact the school if you require further information outlined in the letter.