We deliver training sessions to the broader workforce on identifying and supporting children and young people that are experiencing mental health and emotional wellbeing difficulties.
There are many professions that work directly with children and young people who do not receive training or have the chance to develop the skills to understand what poor mental health is, the impact it can have and how to identify it.
Therefore, many children and young people with poor mental health are struggling for longer than necessary, and opportunities for early intervention work are being missed.
By training the broader workforce (e.g. librarians and sports coaches), we hope that more children and young people struggling with their mental health will be helped and supported at an earlier stage.
As an example, take a look at this guide we co-produced as a programme insight from A Better Start (ABS), the ten-year programme set up by the National Lottery Community Fund.
It provides a summary of emerging evidence in the area of childhood trauma and adversity, and shares the learning on how ABS partnerships have embedded an awareness of the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) within their work, and how they are supporting the development of trauma-informed practice, within and outside of their partnerships.
In November 2022, in partnership with Anna Freud and the Charlie Waller Trust, we were commissioned by NHS England (formerly Health Education England) to develop and deliver a mental health training for the wider children’s workforce in three pilot areas: Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Southampton.
The intention was to design and test the impact of a training that positioned mental wellbeing as “everyone’s business” in a similar way to safeguarding, in order to maximise the role that those in the wider children’s workforce can play in supporting the mental health of children, young people and their families.
In February 2024, we published a final evaluation of these pilots, with the key findings being:
- High levels of attendance throughout the training programme: 740 individuals (63% of those registered) attended at least one training module, with 567 attending all three modules
- Qualitative findings from the focus groups supported data from pre-training and post-training questionnaires: Participants expressed a variety of reasons motivating them to take part in the training, mainly to improve their overall knowledge of mental health in CYP, to learn how to better communicate with CYP and their families, and to improve their confidence to effectively support CYP experiencing problems with their mental health and wellbeing.
- Very high levels of satisfaction with the training programme overall: The vast majority of attendees reported being either satisfied or very satisfied with the content (96%), the facilitation (97%) and the opportunity to engage and ask questions (95%).
- Focus group participants also reported very high levels of satisfaction with the training programme, supporting the findings from the post-training evaluation questionnaire: The relevance of the training, as well as the opportunity to learn from, and collaborate with, other professionals were identified as key aspects of the training delivery that participants were most satisfied with. Participants also expressed that the training had helped to solidify a lot of their previous learning and helped enhance their practice.
- Attendees’ knowledge and confidence in their ability to support children and young people with their mental health and wellbeing improved substantially: Attendees’ self-rated knowledge, skills and confidence to support CYP with their mental health increased by up to 51 percentage points following participation in the training.
- In terms of potential enhancements for future training, attendees would value the opportunity to interact and discuss the content of the training in more detail: From over 200 responses regarding improvements to future training delivery, almost a quarter of respondents expressed wanting more opportunities for engaging and interacting with other attendees (e.g., through the use of breakout discussions).