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.
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 secondary schools
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:
Your data:
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