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School Wellbeing Service

Health and wellbeing School Wellbeing Service

Islington’s School Wellbeing Service (SWS) is a new NHS resource for all mainstream schools in Islington. We are working together with schools to build on the excellent mental health provisions already available in the borough.

The SWS aims to improve capacity for early intervention for mild to moderate mental health difficulties, as well as promoting a ‘whole school approach’ to emotional wellbeing and resilience. The service is split into two teams covering the north and south of the borough. The teams will be based in two secondary schools and deliver most of their work in a child or young person’s own school.

School Wellbeing Service

Please note: not all content in this section is fully accessible, and is being updated. Please contact us if you require any content in a specific format.

Development of the service

The SWS is part of a joint NHS England and Department for Education national programme known as mental health support teams (MHSTs, or initially, ‘trailblazers’). This was developed in response to the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Social Care green paper: ‘‘Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health” (2017). This set out the government’s commitment to improve mental health support in schools and colleges.

In Islington, the service has been developed as a partnership across LBI, the CCG and Whittington Health, and is part of the umbrella of social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) services. The service was launched and developed throughout 2020 and is expanding to work with all mainstream schools in Islington in 2021. The teams are made up of clinical and educational psychologists, CAMHS clinicians and School Wellbeing Practitioners (SWPs) working within CAMHS and LBI.

The SWS supports children, young people, and families experiencing mild to moderate mental health difficulties. Examples include:

  • Worries / Anxiety / Stress (including exam stress)
  • Low mood
  • Sleep difficulties
  • Friendship / bullying issues
  • Challenging behaviour
  • Transitions e.g. changing schools

How we work

The teams mainly offer guided self-help (GSH) interventions through 1:1 work, groups, and workshops.  The focus is on early intervention to prevent difficulties from escalating.

In primary schools, we mainly work with parents to enable them to support and manage their child’s anxiety or behaviour problems, as well as some group work with children. In secondary schools, we mainly work directly with children and young people.

We can also deliver staff training, and run workshops and groups on topics such as: sleep, transitions, exam stress to teachers and parents.

 

For support about the return to school the 'wellbeing return and recovery page' has resources to help your staff and pupils settle back and support students' emotional wellbeing in order for them to feel safe and confident again to engage in learning.

 

Find out more in the Guide for Professionals in 'Attachments'.

Who we support

Pupils

The SWS offers different evidence-based interventions for targeted individuals, groups or whole classes of children and young people. Most of our work in primary schools focusses on supporting parents to better support their child’s emotional wellbeing, but we accept referrals for work with individuals following discussion with the school’s CAMHS in Schools clinician. We also offer a whole class group intervention to improve emotional regulation, Brain Buddies. In secondary schools we focus on working directly with children and young people. We offer 1:1 guided self-help intervention for young people who are struggling with feelings of anxiety or low mood and a group IPT-A intervention, Teen Talk, which can help young people with low mood. We also offer workshops on a variety of topics including anxiety, sleep hygiene and exam stress as well as shorter assemblies.

For more information see our Minimum Offer to schools below and Current Offer for primary schools and secondary schools in Attachments below.

Parents

The SWS offers 1:1 guided self-help intervention for parents/carers of children who may be struggling with feelings of anxiety or challenging behaviour. We also provide psychoeducation workshops for both universal and targeted groups on a variety of topics including transition and anxiety. For parents of young people, we provided a targeted workshop that focuses on teenagers and sleep.

See also parent and carer wellbeing page for resources designed to help school staff support parents and carers during this difficult time. 

Staff

The SWS supports staff with the promotion of a whole-school approach to emotional wellbeing and resilience. We provide staff training on a variety of topics, including how to have meaningful conversations with young people, a narrative approach, and facilitate a network meeting for school mental health leads. See also the staff and wellbeing webpage for lots of useful resources. 

The offer for Primary and Secondary schools is available in 'Attachments'.

Minimum Offer to schools from September 2022

Please note: There have been changes to our offer this academic year and is reflected in the lists below. For further information about these changes please see the letter sent to schools in 'Attachments'.

Primary

  • 1 individual intervention per term
  • 1 group per year (‘groups’ can be targeted or whole-class groups of pupils or parents, and usually run for 6-10 weekly sessions)
  • 1 workshop per year (a ‘workshop’ is usually a single stand-alone session with a group of pupils, parents or staff)
  • 1 set-up or review meeting per year
  • Access to resources and pre-recorded workshops (available on SWS website and YouTube channel)
  • Named SWP point of contact

Secondary

  • 2 individual pupil intervention per term
  • 2 groups per year (‘groups’ can be targeted or whole-class groups of pupils or parents, and usually run for 6-10 weekly sessions)
  • 3 workshops per year (a ‘workshop’ is usually a single stand-alone session with a group of pupils, parents or staff)
  • 1 set-up or review meeting per year
  • Access to resources and pre-recorded workshops (available on SWS website and YouTube channel)
  • Named point of contact

Resources

Resources for primary schools

Resources for secondary schools

Resources for staff

SWS YouTube channel

Meet the Teams

The North Team

The North Team is based at Arts and Media School Islington.

The South Team

The South Team is based at Copenhagen Primary School.

 

How to refer:

To refer a child or young person to the service, please initially talk to your CAMHS in Schools clinician and then complete the SWS referral form and send it to us by email:

Referrals for all other SEMH services should be made through the Children's Services Contact Team:

Worried about a child

 

Your data:

Islington Council monitors equality data to help it to ensure everyone gets equal access to its services.  Our approach to equality and diversity.


Attachments

.pdf
School Wellbeing Service List of Schools
.docx
School Wellbeing Service / SEMH Request for Service Form
.pdf
SWS A Guide for Professionals
.pdf
School Wellbeing Service Offer - For Primary
.pdf
Senior mental health leads draft guidance for Islington schools
.pdf
School Wellbeing Service Offer - For Secondary
.pdf
DfE Experience Survey 2022 information
.pdf
Letter to schools Sept 2022
Islington Council

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Terms and Conditions for London Borough of Islington Learning and Professional Development Events and Resources

IslingtonCS and the London Borough of Islington are committed to providing a high quality professional service and learning environment. Our aim is to provide a positive learning experience and you can expect:

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Therefore we will:

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Trainers may act on any issue/practice/situation/concern either about, or raised by, a delegate in a training context. Initially they will try and resolve this with the individual concerned. If this is not possible then the issue will be referred to the course organiser. Any such matters will be dealt with in a timely, factual way with the delegate being informed of the course of action to be taken.

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If delegates have concerns about any issues they experience during the learning event they should discuss this with the trainer in the first instance. If this is not appropriate or unresolved then they should talk to their line manager who will contact the learning and development manager. We welcome feedback as part of monitoring the quality of our learning and development activities.

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Delegate cancellation: To avoid a late cancellation charge we ask for three working days' notice (i.e. Monday-Friday) for all cancellations; this gives us enough time to try and reallocate your place on the course.

Late arrival: In order that courses can start promptly, delegates are advised to arrive at least 15 minutes before the advertised course start time. It is at the trainer's discretion to accept late entry. Where late arrival results in delegates being turned away, the non-attendance fee will apply.

Multiple day events: It is essential that you attend all sessions of a course where it takes place over a number of days. Failure to attend the whole course will result in non-attendance charges being applied to each session missed and/or certificates not being issued.

Substitute delegate: In all circumstances, we are happy to try to accommodate an appropriate substitute from your service/organisation, please contact us prior to the event to organise this. We will except last minute substitutions on the day, please ensure the delegate makes the trainer aware on arrival and adds a note to the register indicating who they are replacing. Please bear in mind that the cancellation charges still apply should the substituted delegate fail to attend or arrive late.

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Course cancellation: It is our policy not to postpone or cancel unless:

  • a minimum number of bookings (usually 6) is not received within 5 working days of the start date (please note that this decision is at the discretion of the course organiser)
  • there are unavoidable circumstances, such as a sudden illness of the trainer or adverse weather conditions.

If a course has to be cancelled in either of these circumstances, all candidates will be contacted via email/telephone. It is therefore essential that colleagues registering for a programme of professional development provide relevant contact details.

Non attendance charges

Where training places are funded and attendance is offered free of charge:
Late cancellation or non attendance on the day will incur a standard fee, unless advertised differently, of £50 per session

For courses where attendance is chargeable:
Any non-attendance or late cancellation fees will be collected as above at £50 per session or for the course cost should it be greater. Where payment is required in advance via a debit or credit card, these payments are only refundable if the event is cancelled or not delivered.

Please note: Any applicable fees and charges that are invoiced to your employer will be governed by LBI's debt recovery process.

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Where there is online learning or other preparation that must be completed before for the course: Failure to complete it within the required time may result in your course booking being cancelled and a non-attendance fee being charged.

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We ask you to complete an online post-course evaluation. In most circumstances, this will be sent and accessed via IslingtonCS. In order to ensure we provide a quality service we would ask participants to take the time to complete their feedback. In some circumstances we may withhold certificates until an evaluation request has been fully completed.

The trainer may ask you to identify how you are going to apply the learning at the event and some courses may have a more formal assessment .

We may also contact you or your manager to discuss what difference the training has made.

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