Schools and Colleges Early Support Service

Our offer includes over 30 live webinars for parents and carers per year, as well as ongoing access to a series of on-demand webinars for parents, carers, staff, and young people. These webinars provide information and knowledge about mental health, alongside practical strategies that support wellbeing long-term.

Our practitioners come from a range of training backgrounds and experience, including counselling, psychotherapy, youth work and family support. All practitioners are trained to provide evidence-based and structured intervention for young people with mild-to-moderate mental health issues – most commonly anxiety and low mood. All practitioners have a secure knowledge of children and young people’s emotional wellbeing and mental health needs.

No. We’ve co-developed this service model with school and college staff to help you implement a whole-setting approach to wellbeing. We believe strengthening young people’s support networks of education staff, parents and carers is essential for supporting their mental health and wellbeing. The trusted adults in children and young people’s lives are key to facilitating change.

Providing opportunities for these adults to expand their understanding of young people's mental health develops support systems that benefit all young people in your school or college, not just those you are referring to sessions.

At present, no. However, settings must be able to provide all young people they refer with devices and safe, quiet spaces to attend sessions.

We will liaise with your setting to guide next steps for young people who require ongoing support. You can also reach out to the team and we can have a conversation about how best to support them. We will consider this on a case-by-case basis.

We do not intend to close referrals and would only take this step as an absolute last resort. In periods of high usage, we will be transparent about the time between referral and sessions beginning.

Previously, we have only closed referrals when carrying out major changes to our digital platform – we would communicate any changes with you in advance.

Yes. Our service is remote, with sessions delivered online. Therefore, we require schools and colleges to have a strong enough Wi-Fi connection to support video calls. Young people will need access to a safe and private space during the school or college day for their sessions, as well as a functioning device.

If young people at your school or college do not have organisation email addresses or cannot receive external emails, please contact us before signing up. We cannot use students’ personal emails.

All our practitioners are DBS checked, trained in safeguarding and will work closely with the secondary school or college to support a safeguarding plan.

However, we require a named school or college safeguarding lead to be contactable when sessions are running in the event of disclosure of serious risk. Safeguarding responsibilities remain with the school or college with our liaison and support.

As such, we only schedule support sessions during your school or college’s safeguarding hours and when a named staff member is available. Settings must keep our team up to date with any changes to their safeguarding coverage.

Young people, parents, carers and staff at participating secondary schools and colleges will have access to our offers. Parents’ and carers’ access to 1:1 consultations is reserved for those whose child or young person is receiving a direct intervention.

The service is delivered to individual schools and colleges, not whole academy trusts. If more than one school or college from an academy trust would like access to the service, each one needs to sign up and pay separately.

Two members of staff will have portal logins. Access to the portal allows staff to submit referrals for the 11–15 support offer and enables them to see all referrals submitted, including 16–25 self-referrals.

Referrals can be made from September 2024 to May 2025. All sessions are paused during school and college holidays, as the service operates within the opening hours of each school or college. This ensures appropriate safeguarding cover.