Information for children and young people

Our sessions and the way we work is based on the idea of collaborative working, meaning that we will work with you, supporting you in making decisions together.

Usually, we meet with you for up to 10 sessions. In our first session we will explore what the main issues of concern are for you, so that together we can decide if CBT informed interventions are the right support for you.

We will then focus on what it is that is impacting on your life, and work together to unpick how you would like this to change. Whatever we work on, we will set a specific goal for our time together, so we can keep track of how helpful our sessions are.

Depending on what we are working on, we may sit and talk about it and then actually practice things in everyday life so that we can begin to experience and think about things differently.

We will work together throughout this, reviewing and celebrating progress as it is made, identifying any setbacks helping to manage these, and then plan for how our sessions will come to an end.

We will support you to manage your issue of concern, but you will need to work on this outside of our sessions for our interventions to be effective. 

This is a key part of CBT and will help you to put into practice in your everyday life things you have learnt during the sessions.  We may set home learning tasks like reading, logging your progress at home, keeping a journal or we may ask you to complete activity sheets. 

Not doing home learning tasks is one of the main reasons for CBT does not work, therefore it is important that you are willing to do this. 

All we need from you is to be fully on board and motivated to talk and to work on this.

We will try to see you during the school day. Our sessions will usually last for the duration of a lesson, which is usually up to an hour. 

We will try to see you in person, face to face, however when this is not possible, we will arrange to meet online.

We will be able to see and hear each other. No one else other than you, your allocated practitioner from the MHST and your parent or carer (if agreed) will be able to join in or hear the session so it will remain private.

We will email you a link so that you can join the online sessions.

Our privacy notice gives more information.

We have put together some guidelines to help make our online sessions go as easily as possible. Read through the list below and feel free to ask any questions that you may have.

Session guidelines

We will call you at a previously agreed time. 

Sessions generally take place weekly and last for up to 60 minutes.

It may be helpful to log on 5-10 minutes before the session to make sure the link works and that you are comfortable and ready.

Try and find a quiet and private space for the meeting, ideally not your bedroom. Consider noise and if others can see or hear you, as well as personal or confidential information that may be in your background.

Be respectful of your practitioner and the session. It is not acceptable to video, screenshot, or screen record sessions and share them with others on any social media platform or in any other format.

It is important for you to attend sessions at agreed times so we can provide regular support.

Avoid forms of distractions during sessions (for example eating, mobile phone, computers, TVs).

Wear appropriate clothing to sessions (not pyjamas, dressing gowns, revealing clothing).

Session attendance

At the time of the appointment, we will call you up to 3 times and if you do not answer, we will assume you are not able to attend the appointment.

If you need to cancel an appointment, please give us at least 24 hours’ notice. To do so, email: mhst@westsussex.gov.uk or contact your practitioner in ways you have previously. If we need to cancel your appointment for any reason we will contact you, giving as much notice as we are able to.

Following 2 cancellations you will be offered a review to decide whether this is the best time to have sessions.

If you miss more than 2 appointments without giving notice, we will discharge you from our service.

In between session contact with your practitioner

Contact outside of session times is limited. Your practitioner will contact you for the following reasons, using an agreed e-mail address:

• to send you resources used in the session
• to send appointment confirmations
• for you to send copies of your work (if applicable)

Data protection and privacy notice

The MHST team will use questionnaires to collect personal and special category data, the processing of which is necessary to enable us to be compliant with the law (general well-being duties), and for reasons of substantial public interest.

The data will be processed in accordance with the 2018 Data Protection Act, the General Data Protection Regulations, and any subsequent data protection legislation. The data we collect will be securely stored and kept for period of up to 2 years before being appropriately destroyed. 

The data we will collect will not be used for any other purpose than that stated above without your prior written consent. West Sussex County Council is registered as Data Controller (Reg. No. Z6413427).

Our privacy policy provides further information.

What we discuss in our sessions remains confidential between the Mental Health Support Teams (MHST) 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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.