The Thrive Hub is based in Abbeyfield School and supports young people who are experiencing emotional and mental well-being vulnerabilities. It was a pilot scheme to improve Schools understanding of emotional and mental well-being.
The Thrive Hub is based in Abbeyfield School and supports young people who are experiencing emotional and mental well-being vulnerabilities. It was a pilot scheme to improve Schools understanding of emotional and mental well-being.
Abbeyfield have taken this concept further and instead of only having 10 hours CAMHS support in the School weekly, they have appointed a person to work full time as a Thrive support in order to offer on-going support and education within the School for students, Parents and staff. together they provide group support, individual support, signposting services to access the needed services, drop in’s, a safe place for students to go to when they are struggling, a chill space to manage exam stress, Parent support groups, Peer mentoring for students, self-help materials for students and staff. On-going training and education to ensure we break the stigma of mental health issues and encourage mental wellbeing for all people.
A space for staff to access support if needed in relation to individual students, support and teaching for PHSE sessions and PHSE days tailored towards the needs of all year groups in regards to emotional and mental well-being.
Education, CAMHS and the Local Authority.
We have regular meetings to ensure the service is working to improve outcomes for young people. We use outcome measures to show improvements in practice. We have a CAMHS Practitioner in school for 10 hours a week. We share training services with Thrive Hub Schools and other local Schools.
The Thrive Hub posts were developed as part of Wiltshire Council and CAMHS transformation plan. This was written in conjunction with Children and Young people from participation groups across Wiltshire. The posts were also informed by “Future in Mind” where young people talked about young people stated that when they needed help, they wanted to find it easily and to be able to trust it. Having trained Mental Health Professionals embedded in schools goes part way to meeting this need.
Within each Thrive Hub School the pupils are encouraged to work alongside CAMHS clinicians to shape the service to meet their needs.
Communication has been vital to the successful implementation of this service in the School. As well as an open support and direction from the higher management team. They have not failed to listen and accommodate suggested improvements for their students and their families. This showed greatly with the role change of a staff member who became a full time Thrive Hub Support member. Enabling students to have a place of safety during all school hours and even after school hours on some evenings. The main challenges were getting teachers to allow students to access emotional groups during educational time, but with teaching and training to highlight the link between emotional wellbeing and being able to access education this changed many staff members way of thinking. Other challenges came from the support teams in school wanting to get all support in place as quickly as possible and we found this was not obtainable and needed to be managed over a period of time to benefit the needs of the young people.
Within Abbeyfield the staff member leading the project would be able to offer training to new staff members, as well as a Senior member of staff who has a clear understanding of the role and seeks to move to continually offer more support to the students and their families.
This has been a shared services approach so all services involved would be able to continue their role within this and train any new staff.
For every group provided to young people and to parents there is an evaluation form for them to subjectively offer their personal feedback. This is to show any improvements and to see if they feel they have found knowledge from the group. This is to help improve and streamline the groups to provide the best support possible.
The School also evaluates their opinion of the service provided from the CAMHS Practitioner within the school and what improvements or challenges this has uncovered.
We are in the process of evaluating the impact of the service in the school staff team.
The groups have been very effective so far and the young people are happy to feedback what they have liked and what they want changed to make future groups more effective, this will be monitored and can be adapted to meet the needs of the different individuals in the groups.
More long term we will be able to use the Wiltshire Council/ Public Health Schools survey to see any impact. We have noticed less referrals to CAMHS from the Thrive Hub Schools.
This is a continual process as we have piloted the service and outcomes are being measured on many areas, looking at how many young people access support, how many young people need increased support, or a referral to a CAMHS service. We have found that by opening up the conversations with young people they have been able to access emotional support freely within the educational setting.
This service is in it’s infancy but to date the outcomes for Children and Young people are Easy access to a mental health Practitioner through school drop in sessions. Where necessary their care can be transferred into CAMHS for therapy without the need for further assessment or the need to tell their story again. Access to groups within school to help them manage situations that are particularly challenging and that may impact on their emotional and mental health – for example a group to manage exam stress on the lead up to GCSE’s. Signposting to other organisations/ websites that are able to support their needs. Emotional and mental health is better understood by school staff, Children and Young people can be better supported at all levels. Whole school days are starting to place emotional and mental health on the agenda for all pupils, reducing stigma and encouraging conversations.
We are a linked service who work with 11 other schools and we share our experiences and resources, skills, knowledge and training. While also reviewing and adapting continuously to provide a more efficient service to each school. This is to provide the best support for young people to understand and manage safely their emotional and mental health.
