Mental Health in Schools Team

MHSTs are new 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 Sunderland 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. The support will include resources, group work (including assemblies), and 1:1 work with individuals, and the full range of support will be considered and co-produced with young people and their families and education staff.

Hill View Infant Academy won a bid to become one of only 8 schools in the Sunderland area accessing this service. We were chosen as a host school in the intial roll-out and are now continuing to be part of the expansion. 

How the MHST and Hill View will 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, VCSEs, 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 Luisa Gibson)

 Our Education Mental Health Practitioners (EMHPs) is called Beverly. If you feel your child would benefit from support from Beverly and Luisa in school then please get in touch using the email below.

shvlgibson@hvi.org.uk