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Salford’s Emotional Health: Directory of Services for Children and Young People

The GM i-THRIVE Programme team spoke with Jane Roberts from Salford Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), about Salford’s Emotional Health Directory of Services for Children and Young People. This is a great example of meeting the needs of children, young people and families, who fall within the ‘Getting Advice and Signposting’ needs based grouping of the THRIVE Framework for system change (Wolpert et al., 2019).

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What was the problem you were trying to solve?
Jane Roberts: ‘There wasn’t a single place for children, young people and their families in Salford to access information about services available locally and regionally, to support emotional health and wellbeing needs. There was a need for clear, consistent and relevant information on services providing information, advice and support for children and young people’s emotional health and wellbeing. To enhance equitable access, there was an understanding that the format of this information needed to be easily accessible to professionals, volunteers, families, children and young people.’

Salford’s Emotional Health Directory of Services
The Emotional Health Directory of Services for Children and Young People was first produced in 2013, by Salford’s Emotional Health and Wellbeing Partnership, in conjunction with Salford’s Anti-Bullying Steering Group, for Salford Children and Young People’s Trust.

The Emotional Health Service Directory, aims to be the single ‘go to’ place for information about children and young people’s emotional health in Salford, providing a place for children, young people, their families and professionals to get quick, easy and direct access to up-to-date emotional health information.

 

The directory sits on the Emotional Health and Wellbeing (EHWB) webpages, alongside information on training, events and resources to support the wider workforce. In addition, the directory is available to young people via the WUU2 webpages and also available via Salford’s Local Offer.

The directory is a dynamic document that includes shortcuts and hyperlinks to allow users to navigate via a thematic search or via the THRIVE Framework needs based groupings. The directory is updated by a member of Salford’s CCG, on a quarterly basis to ensure that all information is accurate and relevant.

The latest version of the directory was launched at a Salford THRIVE event in November 2018 alongside the EHWB webpages and resources (Partners in Salford), and was promoted widely via cross sector partners.

  Image 1. Directory website.

 

What was the approach you took in developing the directory?
The directory has been revised a few times to reach its current form, outlined below is a brief history of its development:

As part of the EHWB partnership the Emotional Health Directory of Services was first created in 2013 to support professionals in understanding what services were available for children and young people in supporting their emotional health and wellbeing.

In 2015 as part of the CAMHS Transformation work and recommendations put forward in the Future in Mind report, a mapping exercise was undertaken to identify the services available to support children and young people’s emotional health.

The services were mapped across universal, targeted and specialist levels alongside the following age ranges – pregnancy and birth; 0-5 years; primary years; secondary years and transition to adulthood.

To support and improve the confidence of frontline staff and volunteers when working with children and young people the information was used to develop a new version of the EHWB directory.

Following promotion of the directory at a CCG GP event, feedback was very mixed. The general consensus was that the directory was a good idea; however, the size of the document was too large and impractical for GPs to use in consultations. The request for a 1 page of information to be produced that could be printed was not an option, considering the amount of information contained in the document. Hence the latest version of the online directory was developed.

Image 2: Example from the directory.

How does the directory fit into Salford’s plans to implement the THRIVE Framework?
The THRIVE Framework for system change (Wolpert et al., 2019) was developed through a partnership between the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust and the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families. The THRIVE Framework is a whole-system, needs based framework for supporting children and young people’s emotional health and wellbeing.

The Salford Emotional Health: Directory of Services for Children and Young People is an excellent example of the ‘Getting Advice and Signposting’ needs based grouping of the THRIVE Framework being put into practice. The directory provides clear and accurate information about the support and services available in Salford, ensuring that frontline professionals, volunteers, families, children and young people all have access to the same information.

What feedback have you received about the directory?
The new version of the directory was launched in November 2018 and feedback has been extremely positive, with professionals and schools stating that the directory helps them in their roles.

What is the future of the directory?
A member of Salford’s CCG will update the directory on a quarterly basis ensuring that information is always up to date. There is also an ask that if people have any feedback and/or recommendations, that they email the EWB inbox with their suggestions. We have had a request already from a GP that referral forms are embedded into the document for ease, and this work is now underway.

Further work needs to be done to review how young people are using the resources and to ensure their recommendations and suggestions are used to further develop the resources and webpages.

In the long-term there will be a review of how many people access the directory and we will be gathering feedback on how it is being used, and whether it is meeting the needs of the children’s workforce.

Gloucestershire and Bristol CCG contacted the team for support on how to replicate the directory in their locality, so learning is being already shared on a national level.


If you would like to find out more information, please contact Jane Roberts, jane.w.roberts@salford.gov.uk.

Edited by the GM i-THRIVE Programme Team, and the National i-THRIVE Programme Team.

Written November 2019.

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