Views & Opinion
Creating a partnership to provide a wraparound service Comment by Dr ASHA PATEL, CEO of education not-for-profit Innovating Minds
Teachers worry about some of their pupils when they are not in school. They worry when they are absent for prolonged periods, how they cope during the summer holidays, and they have worried even more during lockdown. In a previous article for Education Today, I
interviewed Michelle Connolly, a learning mentor at Harefield Junior School in Hillingdon. Her job was pastoral, offering practical help and mental health support, working with parents, social services, educational psychologists, therapists and counsellors. She talked about the pressures of dealing with 'children's distress and anxiety and some families' often intractable problems.' Sometimes teachers and parents are not
the best people for children to talk to. They may feel guilty about putting an extra burden on a parent who is worried about finances or losing their job or just finding life quite joyless, and there may be pressures from other family members too. Similarly, children do not always want to talk to teachers. They may worry about confidentiality and, even if they trust the teacher, they may be concerned that it will change the relationship or that they will always be seen as a child with issues.
The whole school approach to mental health At Innovating Minds we started by working in schools, putting in a clinical psychologist to support staff and to train them to assist students. We wanted a unified strategy for mental health so that there would be coherent messaging across the school and a consistent approach to young people. This meant that a child could approach the caretaker, a lunchtime supervisor, a teacher, head of year or learning support assistant and that all the staff would have an awareness of mental health and be able to listen and to talk to the child at that moment and to know when to refer them on for more specialist support. The rationale of our Mental Health First Aid courses was to reinforce
the whole school approach to mental health. We wanted to change the culture of a school, so it moved from punitive measures to restorative justice, so it saw behaviour as a form of communication and recognised the limitations of zero tolerance policies. Demand for our services and expertise outstripped supply so we moved
online and created EduPod, an online platform with all the information and resources a school would need. We included audits, reporting tools, training materials. articles and webinars from leading experts in a wide range of mental health issues. But we still came back to the fact that children are not in school all the
time. Some children may be absent for several months and others will disappear off a school roll permanently through exclusion, moving house or country, or family breakdown. Even – and perhaps especially - when children are not in the classroom, they may be a cause of concern to those staff who have helped them deal with difficulties, so we started to look for organisations that share our values and which can help children both in and out of school.
What Kooth offers Kooth is a free digital mental health platform, available every day of the year from 12-10pm on weekdays and from 6-10pm at weekends and offers safe, anonymous support. It provides advice and a listening ear at
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www.education-today.co.uk May 2021
the point of need- as and when the person wants to talk - and young people won't need a doctor's referral or a letter from a teacher. The counsellors are all trained and accredited and many have worked in schools. Kooth is moderated so that children only see age- appropriate content and it gathers feedback to make sure that the service delivers to those who need it most. It is available in 81% of the NHS’s clinical
commissioning group areas across the country and there is a handy pull-down menu that lets schools and individuals check to see if their area is covered. Different areas have signed up for different services so it is important to check what your area offers but they all cover an age range of 10-24. Some parts of the country offer support to adults too, so some teachers are using it for their own mental health support.
First and foremost, users can use the chat facility to talk to trained
counsellors or just send a message if they prefer. There are no waiting lists, no set appointments and no thresholds for support so people can go onto Kooth as often as they want and talk for up to an hour at a time. However, not everyone wants to talk about themselves. Users can
record and monitor their feelings via journals and goal trackers. Sometimes they just need to feel they are not alone. There is a magazine and a discussion board so young people can participate and have a voice. They can create and contribute to self-help content, write stories, discuss experiences, ask questions or vent their frustrations. Currently, Kooth has over 4,000 logins a day. Here young people can find the information they need, share their feelings, ask for advice and be sure that the person who responds understands their needs and has many years of experience to draw on. Innovating Minds has a mission to develop and promote mentally
healthy environments and the new partnership with Kooth extends the range of support we can offer schools and young people.
Kooth
https://www.kooth.com EduPod
https://www.myedupod.com/
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