Children and young people's mental health and emotional wellbeing (health and wellbeing needs in South Tyneside)

There are a number of sources of information that we can draw on when considering the views of young people and their families both locally and nationally.

• Nationally speaking, there have been a few major consultations undertaken recently. The 'Young Minds Taskforce Report Consultation' and 'Youth Select Committee Call for Evidence about Children, Young People's Mental Health' was undertaken with young people and their families.
• In 2013 the Department of Health (with other partners) led a significant engagement exercise on improving CYP outcomes (DH, 2013).
• Young people talked about mental health information still not being readily available. They understood the value of good quality information stating that they wanted more information online to be endorsed by professionals. They stated that campaigns about mental health need to be as prevalent as physical health campaigns with schools being the main vehicle for this as 82% of the 5,600 surveyed stated that school needs to educate them to look after their mental health and prepare them for real life.
• Both young people and parents recognised school staff training as an area for development as a gateway to services ,this is echoed by our local Mental Health Question Time Panel which highlighted a need to treatment services to be more linked into schools.
• In addition to the nationally understood views of children and young people on MHEW there have been a number of consultation exercises conducted in South Tyneside.
• In 2015, the South Tyneside Young People's Parliament organised a Borough-Wide School Council Health project. The project included hosting three events focussed on health and wellbeing (South Tyneside Young People's Parliament, 2015). The events brought together 2 to 3 members of each Secondary School Council together to discuss a range of topics including emotional wellbeing. The project did bring in a broader range of view as each school council took consultation questions back to their respective schools to include all children.
• The results from the consultation identified that mental health and sexual health are the joint top issues for young people in South Tyneside. The consultation also highlighted that confidentiality was the biggest barrier for young people when it came to accessing support, followed by not having enough information.
• Young people identified that they'd most like to receive information at Schools and education settings, followed by Health care services.
• Following the Borough-Wide School Council Event the Young People's Parliament hosted a workshop during Mental Health Awareness Week (commencing 11 May 2015)
• The Young People's Parliament have also taken the opportunity to shape the services delivered as part of the South Tyneside Clinical Commissioning Group's new Mental Health Lifecycle Service. The Youth Parliament were consulted on the specification and the services offered.
• However, despite the YPP's involvement in the commissioning of the Mental Health Lifecycle Service and a good overall knowledge of mental health in South Tyneside, young people still struggle to understand what services are available to them locally and how to access help. On 9^th December, members of the Public Health Team met with the South Tyneside Youth Parliament to discuss levels of awareness of MHEW in young people, the approach to MHEW taken by schools and other universal services, and local services for MHEW. At this session it was clear that the local offer of help for MHEW was too complicated and not widely understood.
• This is a reoccurring theme in all of the consultations; young people want transparency in terms of how services work and to have an understanding of how services fit together. This was further reinforced by our second round of consultation with our Youth Parliament, Young people completed a 'SWOT (strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis of both CAMHS and school based support services'. There were a number of reoccurring themes that came from this exercise. The main theme was a lack of understanding across the board about what support was available or what would happen when they got there. Most of the young people's comments were about accessing the service and not the quality of the service itself which it useful in understanding future work direction.

The young people in this exercise as well as the Young Minds report also highlighted the issue of trust when receiving treatment. They explained that continuity of staff is essential to the service they received. They also discussed lack of partnership working as a concern with only 42% stating that multiple services had worked well together.

A massive issue raised in a number of reports was that of confidentiality. Clear boundaries and information for young people about what should or should not be shared needs to be present for service delivery to be effected. This was reinforced by our local Borough Wide School Council where confidentiality came out as the top barrier to support that young people face.