Ealing’s emotional wellbeing and mental health information project

The University of West London (UWL) are leading on a project to help schools in Ealing make sense of the services available to children and young people with emotional wellbeing and mental health difficulties.

The aims of the project

Following on from a stakeholder analysis conducted in 2021, several recommendations were made to reduce confusion within families, schools and community organisations regarding the services available to support children and young people experiencing emotional wellbeing and mental health difficulties in Ealing.

The aim of this project is to draw up a list of services that work in Ealing, clearly explaining what those services do, who can make use of them and how to sign up for them. As well as local services, the project will also identify suitable national or regional websites, resources and support services that are available to Ealing residents.

We want to work with schools to test out the language used and to produce simple flowcharts to help schools (and families and community groups) to better understand how to get the right support for children and young people who need it.

What schools will be required to do

Co-production is a key concept on this project. UWL wants to work with three primary and three high schools to ensure that the emotional wellbeing and mental health services identified, and the language used to describe them, are understood by schools.

The Department for Education’s expectation is that mental health support services will be centred on schools as schools are the key setting in which children’s needs are likely to be identified and could be supported. Schools can also provide access to both children and young people and their families who are also key to co-production.

We know that some schools are very advanced in their thinking and work with lots of services to support children and young people, while others are just starting out on this journey. For this project we want to work with schools who are at different stages in that journey. We also recognise the time and funding (and resource) constraints that schools operate under and how this can impact on the provision of services, so we want to ensure that the recommendations we come up with will work for schools.

The work will take place over this academic year and there will be milestones each term as shown below.

How schools will be recompensed for their involvement

Schools that are selected for involvement in the project will be given a £1,000 payment to compensate them for their time. This will be paid in arrears each term provided key milestones are met, with £300 at the end of the autumn term, £300 at the end of the spring term and £400 at the end of the summer term.

How to get involved

Schools that feel they could contribute to this project, whether because they feel they have a lot of the answers already or whether they feel they are only starting out but are keen to learn and develop their offer to children and families, should contact Bronach Hughes (bronach.hughes@uwl.ac.uk or 07810 853561) to register their interest and to explain what they feel they could contribute.

The aim is to have a mix of primary and secondary schools, at least some of which are already working with the Ealing Mental Health Support in Schools service (MHST).

Please make your interest known by Friday 7 October. Successful schools will be advised by Wednesday 12 October so that an orientation meeting can be held before the October half-term, with the first phase of data collection completed during the second half of the autumn term.