The Emotional Health and Wellbeing Service (EHWS) comprises of three separate teams, sitting under the Joint Venture between CCS NHS Trust and CPFT. Staff are employed by both organisations. The EHWS covers Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and operates within the ‘Getting Advice’ and ‘Getting Help’ iThrive quadrants. The EHWS is led by a Clinical Lead (Consultant Clinical Psychologist) and supported by an Assistant Psychologist and Administrative Lead. In January 2021 a Service Manager also joined the growing service.

The three teams within the service are:

Emotional Health and Wellbeing Practitioner Team: A multi-disciplinary team, with staff from a variety of professions, including School Nursing, Mental Health Nursing, Paediatric Nursing, Health Visiting, and Social Work. They work to support the professionals to support the emotional health and wellbeing of CYP.
Children’s Wellbeing Practitioner Team: They provide direct interventions to CYP with mild to moderate mental health problems. Staff have psychology related degrees and complete the Post Graduate Certificate in Children and Young People’s Psychological Wellbeing Practice.
Mental Health Support Teams: The MHST’s are part of a new national initiative that aims to increase the size of the CYP workforce and bridge the gap between Education and Health. Two teams launched in Huntingdon and Cambridge in January 2020, two more in January 2021 in Peterborough and Wisbech (see final page for list of schools), with a further two to launch in January 2022 in Peterborough and Fenland. Four further MHST’s will be launched in Ely and St Neots in 2023 and two more in Cambridge in 2024, bringing the total to 10 by 2024 (fully operational by 2025). This will provide coverage for approximately 50% of the education establishments across the county.

Teams within the service

A multi-disciplinary team, with staff from a variety of professions, including School Nursing, Mental Health Nursing, Paediatric Nursing, Health Visiting, and Social Work. They work to support the professionals to support the emotional health and wellbeing of Children and Young People.

The EHWP’s were the original team members when the EHWP Team launched in January 2018. The aim of the team is to support the network (mostly schools), with helping to signpost and give advice and guidance in relation to the emotional health and wellbeing needs of CYP. The EHWP’s do not ‘case hold’ and the team sits in the ‘Getting Advice’ quadrant of iThrive. The EHWP Team is led by Sarah Stacey.

The team operates a duty system, offering telephone/MS TEAMS support to professionals from education settings (primary, secondary, colleges, and special schools) as well as other professionals such as General Practitioners and Social Care. If you are concerned about a child or young person’s emotional wellbeing please contact the team via ccs.ehw@nhs.net and they will offer you a 30 minute discussion. These discussions give you a safe space to think about what your concerns are and the practitioner can help guide you as to what the next steps may be. Very often no referral to any service is needed – and the EHWP’s can send out information about relevant resources and explain how they are best used with the child or young person by the adults around them.

As well as operating the duty system, EHWP’s also provide staff training to education establishments. This is currently in the form of self-directed learning packages along with a reflective session facilitated by an Emotional Health and Wellbeing Practitioner. They also offer staff support sessions for schools. The popular mental health forums will be re-launching in Spring 2022.

The EHWP Team also started the Cambridgeshire Local Services Briefing webinars in April 2021. This is where local services who offer support to children, young people and families where there is a concern about a child’s emotional wellbeing can share information about their service with a wide audience of professionals such as school staff, health workers, social care district workers and GPs. These will be held four times a year.

Provide direct interventions to Children and Young People with mild to moderate mental health problems. Staff have psychology related degrees and complete the Post Graduate Certificate in Children and Young People’s Psychological Wellbeing Practice.

The CWP Team sits in the ‘Getting Help’ quadrant of iThrive. They are led by Clare Oakman, Team Lead. The team currently work online via MS TEAMS although will see clients face to face if clinically necessary or for reasons of digital poverty. The CWP’s provide direct interventions that are CBT informed Guided Self Help, for mild to moderate mental health difficulties, as a primary intervention. If the child is primary school age, the work is mostly with the parents/carers. If they are secondary age, it is mostly with the young person directly. The table below provides more information as to the type of presenting difficulties they work with.

It is important to note that the CWP’s work to a prescriptive guided self-help evidence based model, with the presenting difficulties outlined above. They are unable to provide a ‘stepped down’ care for more specialist services once they have been discharged, because the intervention packages that they are trained in are targeted at early intervention and would therefore be clinically inappropriate.

The referral pathway for CWP’s is currently through a professional referral via the newly formed YOUnited hub: https://www.cpft.nhs.uk/gpandprimarycare.

The MHST’s are part of a new national initiative that aims to increase the size of the Children and Young People’s workforce and bridge the gap between Education and Health. Two teams launched in Huntingdon and Cambridge in January 2020 and two further teams launched in Peterborough and Wisbech in January 2021. 6 more MHST’s will be launched across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough over the coming 3 years, bringing the total to 10 MHST’s by 2024 (fully operational by 2025)

The MHST’s sit within the Getting Advice and Getting Help quadrants of iThrive. They are part of a national drive to increase the workforce for CYP, increasing access to mental health support. The teams are led by Clinical & Team Leads: Isabel Crovato for Cambridge, Lynne Milton for Huntingdon, Dr. Amaia Roblez-Fernandez for the two Peterborough teams and Emma Sillet for the two Fenland teams. Each team works with up to 20 schools, covering a population of approximately 8,000 pupils.

The senior staff members are clinicians with experience in working with CYP and families in distress, and are comprised of psychologists, mental health nurses, systemic family therapists and Senior Wellbeing Practitioners. They supervise the junior staff, the Trainee Education Mental Health Practitioners (EMHP).

The Trainee EMHP’s attend the University of East Anglia to obtain their Post Graduate Diplomas in Education Mental Health, whilst working clinically within the MHST. The training programme is based on the CWP training model, and with the additional modules around education and working with the ‘Whole System Approach.’ Each MHST also has an administrator, led by the EHWS Lead Administrator, Carly Milne.

MHST’s have three core functions and can be contacted via their duty line ccs.mhst@nhs.net:

Provide individual and group evidence-based interventions with young people and families in relation to mild to moderate mental health needs specifically anxiety, behavioural issues and low mood. These are carried out with the parents of primary aged children and directly with the young person in a secondary or post-16 education setting. The interventions are based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy informed Guided Self Help strategies (this is the same clinical offer as what the CWP’s provide).
Work with education settings to promote a ‘Whole System Approach’ to improve the mental health of the whole organisation, including the wellbeing of staff. This includes staff training.
Offer consultations with school staff and/or clients who may not be appropriate for a direct intervention. Link with other agencies and support referrals and signpost.

The EHWP Team and the CWP Team work with the schools that the MHST’s do not cover. Online working has meant that the EHWS are able to offer more of an equitable offer that is not restricted by geography.

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Additional Resources

Keep Your Head is a CCG commissioned website that brings together reliable information on mental health and wellbeing for children, young people and adults across Cambridgeshire & Peterborough. Visit the Keep Your Head website here.
YOUnited

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Delivering excellence in Children and Young People’s Services:
a partnership between Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust
and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust

Teams within the service

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Cambridgeshire Children and Young People's Services

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