Agenda item

Joint Briefing Note

Representatives from Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership Trust and Coventry and Warwickshire CCGs have been invited to the meeting for the consideration of this item.

Members of the Education and Children’s Services Scrutiny Board (2) have also been invited to attend for this item along with Councillors P Seaman and B Gittins, Cabinet Member and Deputy Cabinet Member for Children and Young People and Councillor K Sandhu, Cabinet Member for Education and Skills

The Board considered a joint briefing note on the emotional wellbeing and mental health support for children and young people in Coventry, with particular reference to the restoration and recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper was presented by Matt Gilks, Coventry and Warwickshire CCGs and Chris Evans, Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership Trust. Members of the Education and Childrens Services Scrutiny Board (2) attended the meeting for the consideration of this item along with Councillor B Gittins, Deputy Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, Councillor M Mutton, Cabinet Member for Adult Services and Councillors Caan and Hayre, Cabinet Member and Deputy Cabinet Member for Public Health and Sport. Councillor Claire Golby, Chair of the Adult Social Care and Health Overview Scrutiny Committee at Warwickshire County Council also attended the meeting and Aisha Minhas, Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership Trust, was also present.

The briefing note indicated that in March 2020, Government initiated national lockdown measures to control the spread of Covid-19 virus. This meant mental health services had to rapidly adapt and embrace virtual and remote working to ensure support continued to be provided to local people during these challenging times. The Covid-19 pandemic had had an impact on everyone’s emotional wellbeing and mental health, in particular children and young people. Although services had continued to provide a virtual support offer during Covid, not all children and young people had the equipment, support or confidence to access support through a digital platform. This had meant some children and young people had become more isolated, which was likely to have a negative impact on their emotional wellbeing. The briefing note referred to the findings of recent surveys/ reports on the mental health of children and young people and highlighted that around 9,000 children and young people in Coventry could now have a probable mental disorder.

The briefing note detailed the successful initiatives that had been that had been led by health and social care as part of the suite of support available for emotional wellbeing and mental health needs during the Covid pandemic and included:

(i) Kooth, an online virtual support offer for emotional wellbeing and mental health, for children and young people aged 11 to 25. Kooth, went live in Coventry on 12 April 2021, and would enhance the early intervention mental health support offer; widen accessibility through an open referral process; give quicker access; give children and young people more choice and control; and support care leavers.

(ii) A system wide working group, known as the mental health surge working group, had been developed to monitor and review referral data into mental health services. Its purpose was to ensure a co-ordinated system wide response to supporting children and young people with emotional wellbeing and mental health issues. The working group provided an opportunity for services to come together to build working relationships, understand services, and to help avoid duplication across the system. The group developed a children’s and adults’ mental health service offer leaflet which was circulated to all schools across Coventry.

(iii) In September 2020, the Government launched a Wellbeing for Education Return training programme as a response to providing mental health and emotional wellbeing support to schools and colleges. Coventry Educational Psychology Team took the lead on the local roll out of this programme and hosted a number of webinars during November 2020. The training programme focused on developing a whole school approach to managing mental health and emotional wellbeing and building resilience. There were over 120 nominated leads within education settings.

(iv) On 7 and 14 June 2021 system wide mental health webinars were delivered to School leads. The webinars focused on the local emotional wellbeing and mental health offer available in Coventry.

(v) Coventry and Warwickshire Mind had adapted their offer during the Covid-19 pandemic, involving the move to a digital platform. The briefing note highlighted the support services that Mind now offered.

(vi) Coventry had received NHS England funding to develop and implement two mental health support teams (MHSTs) in schools. All school were supported for an interim period during lockdown. The support was now back to 8 schools with the plan to grow the access for up to 31 schools.

(vii) The Primary Care service had continued to offer support and consultation to schools and those professionals reaching out the service via the Rise Navigation Hub. Rise delivered a series of training sessions to professionals on self-harm to support those professionals who were dealing with distress. In March 2020 the Rise mental health service for children and young people made rapid changes to the Crisis Team, moving it to a new location at Whitestone Clinic, Nuneaton, where it could access clinical space to see children and young people away from acute hospitals, given the expectation they would be running at maximum capacity in response to Covid-19. The service had introduced a 24/7 Crisis Telephone contact service at very short notice.

(viii)  As part of recovery planning activities, additional investment had been made by the Clinical Commissioning Group for the recurrent growth of the children and young people Eating Disorder service and the children and young people Crisis Team. The briefing note detailed the measures put in place with additional funding from NHS England including the development of a multi-agency ‘Think Family support Service’ and the commissioning of PeopleToo, an independent voluntary sector organisation.

Members were informed that throughout the Covid pandemic all services across the system had continued to operate and deliver emotional wellbeing and mental health service to meet the needs of local children and young people, during this difficult time.

The briefing note highlighted areas of concern indicating that National Lockdown restrictions for children and young people had prevented normal access to support from school, friends, clubs and the activities that children and young people utilised to help support their emotional wellbeing. Early indications had identified that children and young people had experienced increased levels of anxiety and separation distress without the ability to normalise this in the way they would have done before restrictions. There were some specific areas where there were increased levels of complexity and demands for services, in particular eating disorders and children and young people presenting in crisis. While overall referrals dropped in the first three months of the pandemic, demands on services had now grown significantly. Since March 2020 eating order referrals had increased in both quantity and complexity.

Locally and nationally, there had been a surge in demand for support for children and young people who were in a state of crisis in both the community and presenting at acute hospitals. Locally, the services established to support these children and young people experienced demand beyond their capacity which resulted in the need to use capacity from elsewhere in the system. There was a particular concern about the availability of tier 4 beds. The briefing note highlighted the measures put in place to cope with these service demands.

Reference was made to the issue that data collected suggested that social isolation was a growing problem for children and young people.

Additional information was provided on the next steps which included funding being sought to extend the Think Family Support Service for  children and young people with eating disorders; a further roll-out of the Kooth programme; and the development of the CAMHS provision/ services.

Members questioned the representatives and officers on a number of issues and responses were provided, matters raised included:

·  Support for all the excellent work of the services supporting the emotional wellbeing and mental health of the children and young people in the city

·  Further information about the assistance for children and young people with lower level mental health issues, including the help in schools

·  What support was available from GPs and what were the referral options open to GPs to refer their patients

·  How are long term and short term mental health issues differentiated

·  The role of parents in mitigating mental health problems

·  Further details about the relationships with Coventry and Warwickshire MIND

·  Concerns about cultural barriers and mental health issues with particular reference to the elderly

·  Clarification about the different on line tools which offer support for children and young people with mental health issues

·  What happened when children/ young people failed to attend their appointments, what were the follow up procedures

RESOLVED that the progress to date be noted and the plans to further progress the mental health and emotional wellbeing support available in Coventry be endorsed.