Service information for children and young people
We work with schools to improve mental health and wellbeing of staff and pupils.
We can help with things like:
- Anxiety
- Low mood
- Low self-esteem
- Phobias
- Poor eating patterns
- Poor sleep
- Worry
- Angry outbursts
- Depression
- Social anxiety and more...
We can meet with you for up to 10 sessions in school or online to support you with your mental health. Depending on your age we sometimes involve to parents/carers too but we’ll talk to you about this first.
We offer one to one support using a type of talking therapy called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or CBT.
CBT is ‘evidence based’, which means that there has been a lot of research into this method.
CBT focuses on a thoughts, feelings and behaviours cycles, which means how you think (your thoughts or assumptions) are linked with how you feel (your emotions) which is then linked with what you do (your actions or behaviours).
CBT works to change the patterns of thoughts and feelings that keep you stuck, to change this thoughts/feelings/behavioural cycle.
With help to identify these unhelpful cycles of thinking and behaving, you will be able to build a more helpful belief and also improve your problem-solving skills which will reduce your emotional difficulties.
We work with you to set goals and make sure you’re in control.
You can watch our video for more information!
Further information
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What we discuss in our sessions remains confidential between the MHST service and you (and your parent or carer if appropriate) unless we feel there are concerns for your safety or wellbeing, or that of others. In this case, we have a duty of care to ensure that you and others are safe, and will need to share this further. Whenever possible, we will talk to you before we share any information so you know what we are going to say and who we will say this to. The MHST do have weekly contact with your school’s Senior Mental Health Lead- who would have referred you to us, however we do not share what we discuss and the content of our sessions, but we do inform them that we are working with you and will update them when our sessions are complete.
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We are an all year-round service, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, which means we will be able to continue our sessions regardless of school holiday’s. You don’t need to worry if you have other commitments over the holidays’ either as we will arrange our sessions around when you are available.
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Our interventions are designed to be short term, so we expect that we will work with you for up to 10 sessions. Each session is up to an hour long and we will aim for these to be held over school hours.
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We are Mental Health Practitioners rather than counsellors. Although we may provide support in some of the same areas as counsellors, our approach is different in that we offer a different type of assessment and intervention and our qualifications are different. There are lots of different people who support people’s mental health including Psychiatrists, CAMHS practitioners, GP’s and Nurses, Mental Health Charity workers, specific Mental Health organisations and support groups, youth workers. Each one of these follows a slightly different approach to their sessions in the types of questions they ask, what happens in their sessions and how long they may offer sessions for.
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All practitioners will use a range of tools, which include questionnaires and worksheets to complete within our sessions and also in between sessions at home, to help us plan together what interventions we will use and then evaluate if the strategy being used is working or not. They are really useful in supporting our discussions, planning our goals and then looking at if this is working. Some of our team will be training so may ask you for your feedback for their university so they can complete their course and qualify. We really appreciate your input into this. Anything that is asked of you to complete, like questionnaires and worksheets is hugely valuable to the session and your progress. Your feedback regarding your experience of the MHST service is also used to make improvements to the service. It can also be used anonymously to look at how our service is doing both locally and nationally.