Mental Health Support Team

We are a MHST school and work with the Spalding Mental Health Support Team (MHST) to provide support that helps meet the mental health

needs of our children.

Who are MHST in Schools?

The Mental Health Support Teams (MHST) are a service designed to help meet the mental health and emotional wellbeing needs of children and young people (age 5 to 18) in selected education settings across Lincolnshire or who are not on roll with an education setting.

The Teams are made up of Clinical Lead Practitioners and Education Mental Health Practitioners (EMHPs). They work collaboratively with selected education settings and other children and young people’s services, including Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, and Healthy Minds Lincolnshire.

The service has three core functions:

• To deliver brief evidence-based interventions to support children and young people with mild-moderate mental health problems.
• To support schools in developing their whole school approach to mental health.
• To provide timely advice to school staff and liaison with external services, to help children and young people to get the right help and stay in education.

What will MHST being doing in our school?

The MHST team work closely with Mr Turner to support and help meet the wellbeing and mental health needs of the children in our school.

The MHST team offer assessments and interventions for a range of mental health needs that may be less complex or may be managed by time-limited interventions. For example, children and young people who demonstrate anxiety and low mood.

MHST interventions involve working with children and their families for between 6 to 8 sessions, usually with a specific goal or outcome in mind.  The therapeutic approach is heavily informed by Low Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (LI-CBT), which uses guided self-help and education around common mental health problems as core principles.

It’s important to know that the work the MHST completes with children and their families requires parental consent and every referral is treated confidentially (unless there is a need to share information around risk or safeguarding).

Interventions will promote resilience and support children and young people to develop the skills and techniques to manage their emotions.

Interventions can be delivered through a range of individual work and groups for both children and parents/carers as well as through whole classroom activities depending on the assessed needs.

If you have any questions or feel like your child may need some support from the MHST, please contact Mr Turner.