Hull Mental Health Support Team engagement and co-production
To continue to develop and improve Hull’s MHST’s a review period will take place across Autumn 2022. During this time, there will be several opportunities for education settings, parents/carers and children to share their experiences of the service so far. The review period will close with a multi-stakeholder review workshop to share service progress, stakeholder feedback and help develop and strengthen the service.
How to get involved
Please only take part in our review if your school/college, or your child’s school/college has access to the MHST service. Find the full list of schools MHSTs are working in here.
Education setting staff
Education setting staff can share their experience so far by completing the survey here and/or attending a virtual discussion group. Register to a group here.
Parents/carers
Parent/carers can share their experience so far by completing the survey here and/or attending a virtual discussion group. Register here.
Primary School Students
Primary school students will be invited to attend group discussion sessions in school. If you would like your education setting to host a discussion group, please contact: Hullschoolslinkshullccg.schoollinks@nhs.net
Secondary School, Sixth Form, and College Students
Secondary school, Sixth Form, and College students can share their experience so far by completing the survey here and/or attending group discussion sessions in their education setting. If you would like your education setting to host a discussion group, please contact: Hullschoolslinkshullccg.schoollinks@nhs.net
Special School Students
Special School students will be invited to attend group discussion sessions in school. If you would like your education setting to host a discussion group, please contact: Hullschoolslinkshullccg.schoollinks@nhs.net
Multi-stakeholder Review Workshop – Thursday 10 November
Education setting, parents/carers and students can sign up to attend the Review Workshop.
The aim of the Review Workshop is to support the development of MHSTs by giving everyone the opportunity to reflect on experiences and to work together to co-produce solutions and celebrate successes.
Please register to the workshop here.
Previous engagement
Between March and July 2021, education settings participated in engagement opportunities and numerous co-production events to ensure that the Mental Health Support Team (MHST) offer is bespoke and meets the needs of the individual, their support network, educational setting, and the wider community. The aim of engagement and co-production was to generate an understanding of:
- Experiences of current mental health support in education settings
- The specific support needs of students, staff and parents/carers
- Thoughts towards the MHSTs: what will work well; what are the perceived challenges; and what needs to be focused on to ensure success?
Engagement resource packs and webinars were utilised by educational settings to engage with staff, students and parents/carers.
Furthermore, face to face and virtual co-production workshops ran to develop the MHST support offer based on the initial findings from engagement. These included:
- Virtual workshops with education setting staff
- Virtual workshop with parents/carers
- Face to face workshop with special school parents/carers
- Face to face workshops with primary school students with the addition of a therapy dog session.
Education settings have shown fantastic efforts to promote and attend engagement and co-production opportunities across their populations and have used real initiative to ensure they make the most of this development phase.
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Engagement findings infographics
Click on the image to enlarge.
Here’s what schools are saying
Engagement is crucial when developing a service and is a way for educational settings to help make another positive difference to the lives of young people and their families. Don’t just take our word for it though. We caught up with some schools to get their views on why engagement is so important and how they have got their staff, parents/carers and pupils involved.
Pearson Primary School
Claire Thackrey, EYFS Teacher from Pearson Primary School, said: “We feel it’s important that we not only engage with teaching staff, but our whole school community to ensure everyone gets a say. We allocated a staff training day as we felt that would be the ideal opportunity to reach everyone within the school.
“On the training day, we put the staff into 10 groups and each took part in a Zoom meeting with a member of the Mental Health Support Team. Prior to the meeting they had no understanding of what a Mental Health Support Team was and they left with a good knowledge around it.
“For the next part of the engagement process, we have invited the CCG to deliver an assembly with our pupils via Zoom. Following the assembly, class teachers will further discuss with their classes the role of the MHST and how they can support our school. This will allow pupils to have an input into forming the next steps of this journey.
“We hope the MHST service will help us reach out to all our school community and by having a team member available to come into school and become a familiar figure within our community, they can establish relationships were people feel at ease to approach them for advice and support. Also, they will be able to guide us in the right direction with their wealth of knowledge and expertise so that everyone within our school gets the support they need.”
Sirius Academy West
Andy Kay, Assistant Head Teacher, Sirius Academy West, said: “Our approach to engagement has seen us focus on ensuring that all people within our school community have an understanding of the programme before we begin the engagement process. We have driven this through staff meetings, starting with our Senior Leadership Team through to our Curriculum Directors and other key staff who are responsible for managing a team. This allows everyone to understand why we are driving this engagement process and the benefits it will bring to everyone in our community. The challenge we have faced is the lack of face-to-face opportunities, however with the return to school, we will hopefully have these opportunities with students.
“We feel that our whole school community needs to be involved within the engagement process as this programme will not only have a positive impact on the young people from our Academy but also all staff who work within our community. We feel it is important for all staff to have their opinion heard as people will have different perspectives on mental health support, from teaching staff, to non-teaching staff as well as our admin and site staff.
“As we near the end of what has been a difficult period for young people, we feel that the MHST will provide a level of support that will not only impact directly on those involved in the programme but also everyone within our school community. We are looking forward to continuing our work in raising awareness of mental health and supporting our young people as we strive for them to reach their potential not only academically but as well-rounded human beings too. We feel that this service will allow our staff to gain expert knowledge in how to identify and support our young people in a time when it is needed more than ever.
Tweendykes School
Andrea Powell, Phase 1 Leader, Tweendykes School said: “With the support from MHST we can ensure that the whole school approach to Mental Health can be pivotal in developing and ensuring change happens and the message we want to deliver is embedded in our school ethos.”
Find out more in this video about Mental Health Support Teams and why engagement is important from the teams at NHS Hull CCG and Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust