Our mental health support teams help young people at school and college, who are experiencing mental health difficulties such as anxiety and low mood.
This page has more information for parents and carers.
The support we offer includes:
- One-to-one and group therapy or skills sessions for children and parent or carers
- Advice or signposting to other services who can help you and your child
- Support for schools and colleges around their wellbeing for pupils and staff
The teams are are a partnership between Pennine Care NHS and specialist mental health organisations.
For contact details and more information, click the links for each borough:
It is important to know you and your family are happy to receive support from us, therefore we need your consent in advance.
Your information will remain confidential at all times. We will explain who we will share your information with.
Information sharing
Usually, we will only share information about you and your family with your permission. There may be a need to share without asking you first, for example if we think there is a risk to your wellbeing or a safeguarding concern; or if we are required to by law.
Where we use your information to review the performance of the service or write reports and communications, your information will be anonymised so that no-one will know it’s about you.
Any information about you will be treated confidentially and in accordance with data protection legislation.
Your information will be held securely on Pennine Care’s electronic record.
Information about how your information is processed is available at: penninecare.nhs.uk/yourinformation
Mental health support teams are part of the child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) within Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust.
We use the same electronic records system as CAMHS. When consenting to a referral, you are agreeing that information held on our electronic records system can be shared with school as part of the consultation and assessment process.
- Either you, school or college has identified your child as needing wellbeing support
- Consent is given by you and your child
- School discusses your child’s needs with us
- As a team we discuss what may be helpful
- We feedback to school with suggestions
- If we feel your child would benefit from one-to-one or a group session, we will contact you directly.
- If you haven’t heard from us or school within four weeks, please contact your child's school for an update.
If your child’s referral to us is accepted, an assessment will take place.
This assessment is not a test or an exam. It is a conversation with your child to gather information to understand what kind of support your child might need.
Our mental health practitioner will also contact you to discuss your understanding of your child’s needs.
This helps us better understand what support will be most beneficial for your child.
Your child’s safety is important to us and we will support you by conducting a thorough risk assessment in our initial meeting.
This involves exploring different elements of risk. This will be around self-harm, thoughts or plans of suicide, and risk to and from others.
A safety plan is agreed with your child and shared with key adults.
We will usually offer you six to eight sessions, lasting between 30-60 minutes, with your mental health practitioner.
Sessions can either be with your child or with you, as a parent or carer. In some cases, it is more appropriate to work with parents on a one-to-one basis, especially where children are younger.
Sessions are informed by cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and provide tools and strategies for common mental health needs in school.
If you have concerns about any of the information you have read on this page, please speak to your school’s mental health lead, and/or your mental health practitioner.
You can find more information on wellbeing at: penninecare.nhs.uk/wellbeing
For any urgent help and advice, call NHS 111 and choose the mental health option 2.