Agenda item

Geraldine Smyth (BCC) gave a presentation on the Mental Health in Schools bid.

·       Mental Health Support teams work with school age population (5-18) to provide early intervention and support to schools, FE colleges and those outside of mainstream education. This is to support young people with mild to moderate issues developing serious problems.

·       This is a bid for 3 years of funding for the BNSSG region, with the CCG submitting the bid and contracting a suitable provider.

·       The teams will be practicing from January 2022 as a year will be required for training.

·       The aim is to cover 25% of the school age population, with each team having a target population of 8,000.

·       The Bristol case focuses on areas of multiple deprivation, which are associated with high risk mental health.

·       The Primary team will focus on settings in Hartcliffe and Withywood and Filwood. The Second team could possibly work across Avonmouth and Lawrence Weston.

Discussion Notes:

·       Number of exclusions should be expressed as a percentage to see the effect per capita rather than raw numbers. Numbers does not account for wards with higher young people populations.

·       Is this support intervention going to be able to meet the city of Bristol’s needs? The bid is CCG wide, but Bristol clearly demonstrates the highest level of need.

·       An implementation date of January 2022 sounds very far away for those young people currently suffering. There is a training need for practitioners that will result in a year’s delay of implementation. It could be useful to have a ‘year 0’, otherwise this is a three year bid that only delivers 2 years of practice.

·       Mild to moderate mental health needs are young people that are starting to develop mental health problems, this will often overlap with ACE factors. Targeting primary schools is very important in this, as we need to catch developing issues early.

·       The bid is for two support teams, but if only one is funded it will be assigned to South Bristol. Bristol has a provable level of need, but other Local Authorities in BNSSG may be annoyed at two teams being dedicated to Bristol. Weston-Super-Mare has a demonstrable high need too.

·       The team structure should be orientated towards delivering as many practitioners as possible. If Bristol is the target area, they should influence the model.

·       How will the posts be recruited and what does the talent pool look like? Staff typically come from a range of related backgrounds such as youth services, drug and alcohol, young offending, etc. There is not a lot of experience in this work in the market, which is why the bid emphasises training need.

·       The practice model is to deliver set number of sessions to individuals with mental health issues, with the option to extend if required. Also to leverage community support organisations where they are available.

·       Approach is useful as most provision at the moment is oriented to serious mental health issues via CAHMS.

·       If successful after the 3 year pilot, there should be a regular allocation of funding to the CCG to support these teams. They should become sustainable, but this cannot be guaranteed at the moment. If the pilot works it should take considerable pressure off other services.

·       Good to run this alongside other extant programmes such as THRIVE. Taking a whole school approach including staff, leadership, pupils, culture, etc.

·       The Board thanked the BCC staff for pushing this work forward.

RESOLVED - The Health and Wellbeing Board agrees to support the progress of this work as described and to sign off the bid when it is completed.