Mental Health Support Team (MHST) Wave 12

Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) are designed to support mental health and wellbeing of children and young people (CYP) in and around schools and colleges.

The teams were described in Transforming children and young people's mental health provision: a Green Paper and they are a key element of the ambitions set out in the NHS Long Term Plan.

This guidance document sets out the process for selecting where within an ICS footprint MHSTs will be placed in 2024/25 and provides you with all you need to know as you work with your partners to establish and deliver your new MHSTs.

MHSTs will support children and young people (regardless of home address or GP) who attend any of the schools identified and approved as an MHST-supported school.

If a young person is identified outside of the school groups and has a Birmingham address and / or GP, the Service will liaise with FTB regarding a plan for the most appropriate service to meet the YPs needs.

This will be reviewed and evidenced in BSOL MHST Steering Group, where any transitional difficulties will be raised and resolutions sought A provider is being sourced for Forward Thinking Birmingham's Mental Health Service Team (MHST) for the provision of a Mental Health Support Team (MHST) service for a period of three years.

This services will include: • Full operational delivery of a defined amount of MHSTs within Birmingham in line with national roll out plan (e.g.

Wave 12 to be operational by January 2025) • Delivery of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) • Successful recruitment and retention of MHST staff, made up of senior clinicians, Education Mental Health Practitioners (EMHPs) and administrative support as per national staffing model skill mix • Provide supervision to EMHPs and Senior staff in line with Health Education England expectations • Provide adequate infrastructure for staff to be able to deliver the service (e.g. estates / IT / other corporate support functions) • Work with children and young people, families, school staff and leaders, key system partners and FTB to improve mental health provisions in schools Mental Health Support Teams are intended to deliver three core functions: 1.

Deliver evidence-based interventions for mild to moderate mental health and emotional wellbeing needs.

2.

Support senior mental health leads in education settings to develop and introduce their whole-school or whole-college approach to mental health and emotional wellbeing.

3.

Provide timely advice to staff and liaise with external specialist services so that children and young people can get the right support and remain in education