Mental Health Support Teams
What are Mental Health Support Teams?
We are linked with the Mental Health Support Teams (MHST) provided by the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. MHSTs are teams designed to help meet the emotional wellbeing and mental health needs of children and young people in education settings. They are made up of senior clinicians and higher-level therapists, and Education Mental Health Practitioners (EMHPs).
In 2020, NHS England confirmed that Wirral had been allocated funding to set up a MHST in education settings. The MHST will provide a range of mental health support to pupils aged 5-18 years old, parents and carers and education setting staff. Together, we can provide resources, group work (including assemblies) and 1:1 work with individual children with mild to moderate mental health difficulties.
How will the MHST and Christ Church work together?
The MHST will work within the emotional wellbeing and mental health support structures that already exist at our school, such as counselling, educational psychology, education setting nursing, pastoral care, educational welfare, the local authority provision and NHS children and young people’s service (CYPS).
Individual staff from the MHST will focus on a cluster or group of education settings, building a relationship with them, particularly focused on the Senior Mental Health Lead in the education setting, Mrs Tweddle.
Our Education Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP) is called Hannah. If you feel your child would benefit from support from Hannah in school then please get in touch with our SENDCo, Mrs Phillips, by clicking here.
How can the MHST support your child?
Together with school, the MHST can provide resources, group work (including assemblies) and 1:1 work with individual children with mild to moderate mental health difficulties.
- anxiety and/or avoidance (e.g. specific phobias, separation anxiety)
- worry management and problem solving
- panic management
- mild obsessive-compulsive disorder and other rigid/ritualistic behaviour
- behavioural difficulties
- low mood/depression
- managing negative thoughts
- thoughts of self harm and support for alternative coping strategies for superficial self-harm
- low confidence and low self-esteem
- sleep difficulties through support of good sleep hygiene
If the school believes a child needs to be referred, we will always request consent from the child’s parent/carer prior to starting the referral process.
Additional Information
The Wirral MHST can be contacted directly using the following contact details:
Birch Centre
Derby Road
Birkenhead
CH42 0LQ
Tel: 0300 303 3157
Wirral MHST Website Wirral MHST Videos