Boost for kids’mental wellbeing

A new project aimed at improving support for children and young people has seen over 3000 education staff inTayside receive emotional health and wellbeing training.

NHSTayside’sTayside Mental Health Innovation Fund project is a three-year programme focusing on early intervention and prevention of mental health in young people.

The programme aims to support education, health and other community staff to build resilience and provide emotional health and wellbeing support for children and young people at an early stage.

Training has been given to newly qualified teachers, class teachers, head teachers, classroom support staff and school nurses, as well as a number of other multi-disciplinary professionals.

Since the project began in May 2016, 3199 primary and secondary school staff and 180 health, social care and voluntary sector professionals have received training from this programme, reaching and supporting over 50,000 pupils in Tayside.

Sheena Devlin, director of education and children’s services at Perth and Kinross Council, is also the lead for theTayside Regional Improvement Collaborative.

She said:“Positive mental health and wellbeing is a key element in children and young people thriving, flourishing and attaining.

“Our staff are often required to respond to low level emotional wellbeing concerns whilst also supporting learning.

“Feedback from the training that has been provided to school staff acrossTayside indicates they feel it has been extremely valuable in helping them spot the signs, and providing the appropriate support to pupils who may need it at an early stage.”

And project manager Rhonda Forbes added:“More and more children are struggling to cope with emotional health and wellbeing issues and it is recognised that education staff are central to supporting good emotional health and wellbeing in young people.

“Feedback on the training has been extremely positive with practitioners reporting that they now feel more confident in supporting children’s emotional health and wellbeing in practice.”