Children's Mental Health Support Teams (MHST) Cornwall
Many schools across Cornwall are now working with an MHST. Your local MHST is an NHS service and will help your school to consider your approach to children and young people’s mental health and provide additional capacity and support to the help that’s already available from existing mental health / wellbeing services.
In Cornwall the focus of the Mental Health Support Teams is on prevention and early intervention and as such we are a primary school linked service. We can also support the transition into secondary school and we link with our secondary school colleagues as required.
Depending on the age of the child or young person, we may work either directly with them or with their parents. We also work with school staff and offer support on different levels; with the aim of developing and supporting a ‘whole school approach’ to promoting mental health.
We can provide individual or group based short term, low-intensity mental health interventions and support focused on mild to moderate anxiety, low mood and other areas.
A leaflet has also been produced for parents and carers of young people which can be accessed electronically HERE or printed from the resources section.
A leaflet for pupils has been produced and can be accessed electronically HERE or printed from the resource section.
For more information, click on the Handbook for Schools below.
Other support services:
Childline
Call 0800 111 (free) or text ‘shout’ to 85258
Open 7:30am - midnight (Mon - Fri) and 9am - midnight (weekends). Available to anyone up to 18 years old.
Samaritans
Visit www.samaritans.org or call 116 123 (free)Open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Anna Freud
Visit www.annafreud.org ‘You’re never too young to talk mental health’ - a leaflet designed by Anna Freud to help parents
make conversations about mental health a normal part of the day, is available here.
Resources for schools from Anna Freud, including the mental health toolkit, are available here.
Young Minds
Visit www.youngminds.org.uk
Support for young people and parents.
Start Now
Visit www.startnowcornwall.org.uk
Support for young people, including the Wellbeing and Resilience Action Plan from the Headstart Kernow team’s website, created by and dedicated to young people.
Headstart Kernow
Visit www.headstartkernow.org.uk
Support for schools (Wellbeing Hub, training for Mental Health Leads) and for parents.
Your Way
Visit your-way.org.uk
A partnership between several youth and mental health services in Cornwall. Passionate about all aspects of our work, we provide quality youth services in Cornwall for and with young people aged 10 and over.
Page last updated: 18 December 2023
