April 2021 marks the beginning of a transformation for the emotional wellbeing and mental health service for Surrey’s children, young people and families. The Surrey children’s system working alongside a new alliance of NHS and national and local voluntary sector organisations will provide a new and broader range of services for children and families.
In the new approach, the alliance will be implementing the THRIVE Framework in which children, young people and families will have a central voice in decisions about their care, and goals identified by them will drive what they choose to help achieve them. This might be through Getting Advice, Getting Help, Getting More Help or sometimes Getting Risk Support. There will be a greater emphasis on providing support earlier, and more opportunity to access a range of services in many different ways and settings.
The new range of services will be rolled out in two phases: phase one (April to September 2021), and phase two (October 2021 to April 2022). This approach will help ensure that families will be safe and well supported while changes are introduced, and feedback will be reviewed and incorporated along the way to ensure the new services are as effective as possible. In the short term, any support and treatment plans in place will continue and, for now, access to services will continue to be via the usual routes.
Trudy Mills, Surrey Heartlands ICS Director for Children’s and LD (CFHS) said: “Children and young people’s mental health is everyone’s business. We are very pleased to be introducing this broad range of new and improved services and support for children, young people and their families. We are fully committed to changing the way we work and to providing the support that children and young people want and need, where they want and need it, and in a way which best suits them. These principles underpin all the new elements of the service.”
The new provision has been developed in partnership with children, young people and professionals and will see services transformed across Surrey.
A significant increase in funding will help improve and increase services. There will be a substantial number of changes and improvements over the next two years, with the following changes to be seen very soon:
- Considerably increased staff resource – more than 100 new staff over the next two years
- Transforming neurodevelopmental services (working with children and young people living with autism or ADHD) is a priority and will, for the first time, introduce treatment for children and young people
- 24/7 Crisis line for children, young people and families
- Out-of-hours advice for families struggling with challenging behaviour
- Widened assertive outreach for vulnerable children
- Introduction of a wellbeing passport that details the young person’s mental health history
- Far easier self-referral and more options
- New activity-based wellbeing campaigns
Overall, there will be a greater focus on providing support when emotional wellbeing or mental health needs begin to emerge. Professionals in schools, primary care and the community will receive increased support and training to be able to help earlier and prevent a deterioration in emotional wellbeing and mental health.
A young person, aged 17, who currently accesses emotional wellbeing and mental health support in Surrey said: “I like the fact that there are lots of options that are now easy to find out about; before I felt it was hard to know where to go or who to ask for support.”
Hayley Connor, Director of Commissioning for Children, Families and Lifelong Learning, said: “With increased support offers across the whole community, and the greater number of places and settings where it is available, schools, GPs and communities will be better supported to help children and young people with their emotional wellbeing and mental health needs. We are committed to listening to children, young people and their families, and will continually review and adapt what we do to make it work better and meet people’s needs effectively.”
More information is available here.