All About..

Salford Mental Health Support Team

Who are Mental Health Support Team (MHST)?

The service consists of practitioners based in education setting across the city of Salford, including primary, secondary schools, colleges and NEET (Not in Education or Employment) providers. All practitioners have completed specialist training to enable them to work effectively with children, young people and parents as part of the national Mental Health Support Team offer which aims to provide the following:

  • To support the Senior Mental Health Lead in each school or college to introduce or develop the whole school and college approach to mental health and emotional wellbeing.
  • To provide timely advice, signposting and consultation to school and college staff, liaising with external specialist services to enable children and young people to continue to access education and reach their full potential.
  • To deliver low intensity CBT informed, evidence-based interventions for mild-to-moderate mental health presentations over 6-8 individual sessions provided in education settings.

Our People

We have 4 locality team leads to link in with Salford geographical localities:

Please contact either Jane Davies (Service Lead) if there are any issues, concerns or complaints or the main office number.

We have a range of child mental health professionals that work in the team such as Education Mental Health Practitioners, Children’s  Young People Wellbeing Practitioners, Registered Mental Health Nurses, Social Workers, Cognitive Behavioural Therapists  and Mental Health Practitioners.

 

Salford Thrive Mental Health Support Team Location

    Address:

    1 Broadwalk, Pendleton, Salford M5 6FX

    View Map

    Contact Details:

    0161 518 539
    mft.salford-tie@nhs.net

    The team meet the young people and families in their education settings during term time or at their preferred locality during school holidays such as Pendleton Gateway or GP surgery.

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Access to Salford Mental Health Support Team

The team accept referrals directly from the education settings that are engaged in the current MHST offer which is currently over  50% of Salford education settings. Designated Mental Health Leads in the school or college  are invited to attend monthly consultations to discuss young people and families who may benefit from the teams offer.

Once a referral is received parents/carers will be contacted for an initial assessment to explore any additional information that school may not have included or be unaware of such as early years development or family mental health.

Waiting times

The team aim to see all children and young people within 4 weeks from the referral, contact with families will be made within the first 2 weeks to arrange the first appointment. The team also meet with parents/carers separately to complete an assessment as well as offering a classroom based observation to gain further insight into how a child may present at school and hear about any strengths, difficulties or concerns teachers may have that they want to share to support the referral.

 

While you wait

The team provide mental health and wellbeing information to all the mental health leads who can provide this via the school or college.

Stories

Would you like to know what other young people and their parents or carers think of their experiences of the team? Take a look at this feedback written by young people and parents or carers.

Frequently Asked Questions

The practitioner will arrange to meet your child in the education setting that they attend during term time and can continue therapy sessions during school holidays at Pendleton Gateway, GP surgery, community setting or virtually.

We would usually complete a number of assessments and questionnaires with the young person, their family and teachers who know them best. Once we have gathered all this information, we would meet with the young person and their parent to provide a formulation with feedback and treatment options. Where we have identified that another team is better placed to support a child we would work with them to access this intervention.

We agree goals and aims of treatment with the young person collaboratively and have a treatment plan we work on over 6-8 sessions, checking in along the way to see how we are progressing. At the end of therapy, we would complete more questionnaires to understand what has worked well and what we could do differently as well as agree strategies that can be used to keep the young person on track.

We also provide individual parent sessions for parents of children under the age of 12 who are anxious which can be delivered face to face or virtually as part of an evidenced based intervention as well as work on supporting parents to help their child to manage their emotional regulation.

Group work is also offered which may involve a brief assessment of needs and personal goals to understand anxiety, mood or emotion management, These groups usually take place in education settings and are supported by school.

  • One day per week in the education setting to support young people
  • Monthly consultation, advice and signposting
  • Termly multi agency Thrive Meetings along with the members of the Thrive team to work on targeted goals as part of the Whole School and College Approach
  • Bespoke training, group work and twilight briefings to support staff needs
  • Parent open sessions/drop in’s
  • School assemblies, open days, parents evening, health promotion events, exam and transition preparation