Mental Health and Wellbeing

At Francis Baily the mental health and well-being of children and their families is paramount to us. We recognise that there may be times when our pupils, and perhaps their families too, might need additional support and understanding. We pride ourselves on being a listening and a safeguarding school and would encourage you to come and speak with us.

MHST

Throughout the previous two academic years and now into our third we have been working with the MHST (Mental Health Support Team) to support the well-being of our families and children. West Berkshire MHST will be continuing to work with Francis Baily School to allow us to support and promote student wellbeing and mental health within the school and community.

Funded by West Berkshire Council, the West Berkshire MHST is a major component of a wider 2018 Government initiative between the Department for Education and NHS England.  Seeking to develop a framework that provides faster access to mental health support in schools, our partnership is part of a large-scale pilot project that includes four waves of trailblazer sites.  West Berkshire’s MHST is part of the first wave and will specifically work in partnership with 27 schools across the region.

The West Berkshire MHST is a multi-disciplinary team comprising 10 members of staff; two Senior Educational Psychologists, a Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust CAMHS Practitioner, a Primary Mental Health Worker, Four Trainee Educational Mental Health Practitioners, a Well-Being Outreach Worker and an Administrative Officer.  This team will work closely with our Senior Mental Health Lead, Miss Hobbs.

Their multi-tiered early intervention approach will deliver evidence-based interventions within school for low-to-moderate mental health concerns, for example anxiety and low-mood, with links to CAMHS for more intense support with severe/enduring needs. 

In order to access support from the MHST, referrals can be made via Miss Hobbs, Senior Mental Health Lead at our school OR via a referral to the Emotional Health Triage. Referrals to Emotional Health Triage can be made by parents, carers, professionals or students themselves. Miss Hobbs, Senior Mental Health Lead in school will also be regularly meeting with either Kate Pike or Neil Ridley (Senior Educational Psychologists) to discuss mental health needs within the school and considering how the MHST can support with our school’s whole school approach to well-being.

MHST - Parent Information Evenings

During the last academic year, the MHST was working with Kennet School to provide parents in the cluster (of which Francis Baily is one of the schools)  with an opportunity to attend information evenings. The first one ran in February 2020, which provided parents and carers with information and guidance on how to support their children’s anxiety needs. This event was oversubscribed by over 100 parents and carers and the intention was to run more of these events, to enable more parents and carers to attend. However with the current Covid 19 restrictions this has not been possible. The MHST (with support from Kennet School) has therefore pre-recorded the presentation on “Understanding and Supporting Children and Young People Experiencing Anxiety” for parents and carers to access remotely via the following link.

 The hope is to be able to offer other presentations/events throughout this year and in order for the MHST to gauge interest/demand for this type of support, the link asks parent and carers to complete a registration form to access the presentation which is led by one of the Lead EP’s of the MHST Wendy Sillitoe. If you wish to access the presentation then once you have clicked ‘submit’ you will receive a ‘thank you’ message which contains a link to the presentation, a handout of supporting information and then there is also a link to a survey monkey evaluation form.

The following link enables you to access the presentation and information provided.

https://vle.kennetschool.co.uk/mentalhealthsupport

This link currently contains tabs to both anxiety and depression workshops but we hope that there will be online safety and sleep workshops run later in the year which we will make parents aware of.