Current programmes

Health Education England commission pilot workforce training in supporting children and young people’s emerging emotional health needs.

We were delighted to announce in February that we will be working with the National Children’s Bureau and the Charlie Waller Trust on an innovative new pilot training programme commissioned by Health Education England. The training aims to reach thousands of staff, from family and youth workers to sports coaches and librarians - helping them spot the signs that a child or young person may require support with their mental health.

Though the long-term aim of this training is to reach 7.6 million members of the workforce across England, the initial phase will offer training to 10,000 staff across the pilot sites of Southampton, Portsmouth, and Norfolk. Target sectors will include education, early years and childcare, physical health, library services, sports clubs, justice and crime prevention, youth and social, family and community services.

Andrea King, our Clinical Director says:

‘We are hugely excited by this pilot because it has never before been done nationally – training for the frontline CYP workforce that places routine emotional health training for all staff and volunteers who come into contact with children and families, on an equal footing as safeguarding children, is ground-breaking.

We would never let a member of this workforce work with a child if they weren’t trained in safeguarding; and this pilot will allow us to give the same priority to emotional health – to support everyone to see the emotional health of children is our shared responsibility. What’s more, what makes this training pilot so unique is that it is currently being co-designed with children and young people, parents and carers and staff members before it is delivered over a 6-month period.”

These sites were chosen because of their strategic partnership leadership and transformation of children’s mental health, having demonstrated a clear commitment to enabling the whole partnership and wider workforce to respond preventatively to the emotional health needs of children and families. Over 480 frontline staff and volunteers from Norfolk, Southampton and Portsmouth have helped us in the co-design of this training.
These areas also offer the opportunity to test the training, to ensure that the varying needs of rural isolated, urban, deprived and affluent, and other diverse characteristics and experiences of our communities is considered and responded to -in line with our shared commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion.
Phase one of the training will mirror the existing statutory safeguarding framework that the children’s workforce already completes.  Staff will be trained in emotional health, which includes how to speak to children and young people about mental health concerns and what to say, offering support and signposting resources, and where to go for more specialist help. The training will include how to recognise signs of anxiety, low self-esteem and loss of social confidence, providing practical skills on how workers can help and when to ask for more specialist support. It will also think very carefully about experience of marginalisation and exclusion; and how to build upon the positives (the protective factors) in children and family’s lives.
Children, young people and parents/carers lived experience has helped us to shape the design of the training; and their voices and experiences will be included in the training itself. In particular, that means we focus on not only what staff and volunteers need to know about emotional health needs, but also on how our children and families experienced asking for help. How we talk to each other, is just as important as what we talk about.

Sara Tough

Director of Children’s Services, Norfolk County Council and Chair of the Children and Young People Strategic Alliance

“We’re delighted in Norfolk to be part of this ambitious and important training which will give everyone working with children the opportunity to play their part in building healthy and resilient communities. We welcome locally that this will be a partnership and co-produced piece of work. Ensuring that the voices and experiences of children, young people and parents/carers combined with the experience of the multi-professional workforce can help us ensure that Norfolk’s children can flourish.”

Councillor Suzy Horton

Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Education, and Deputy Leader of Portsmouth City Council

Dr Debbie Chase

Director of Public Health at Southampton City Council

“We’re thrilled that Southampton has been nominated to participate in Health Education England’s wider workforce mental health training. This training will play a vital part in bringing statutory, voluntary, and service user stakeholder groups together to ensure earlier identification and provision of mental health support for children, young people and their families. By offering this city-wide training teachers, youth workers and mental health support workers will be equipped to support children and young people’s mental health needs at the earliest time point, helping to minimise the escalation of mental health needs and making every contact count.”

For more information email clinicalservicesenquiries@annafreud.org.

Current programmes

Why were Norfolk, Southampton and Portsmouth chosen to receive this investment and be at the forefront of this innovative national work?

What will the training broadly entail?

When will the training pilot begin?

Sara Tough

Councillor Suzy Horton

Dr Debbie Chase