In Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, services are commissioned to provide early support and intervention for mental health and emotional wellbeing to children and young people, as well as training for professionals. Commissioners wanted to understand the views of the community to help improve and inform this pathway in future.
The Nottingham and Nottinghamshire CCG sought to engage children and young people, parents and carers and professionals to understand their experiences and views of support at the early intervention stage.
Engagement commenced on Wednesday 12th August 2020 and was conducted using a variety of methods.
Parents and carers could get involved via:
- 1) An online survey.
- 2) Virtual focus groups.
- 3) Telephone interviews.
Existing or specially organised virtual community group meetings were also attended to engage parents and carers in this work.
Professionals such as GPs, teachers and health professionals could participate via an online survey.
Following a co-production session with young Citizen Researchers on the youth-led project, MH:2K, engagement opportunities for children and young people were shared on Thursday 27th August and included:
- 1) An online survey.
- 2) Virtual focus groups as hosted by MH:2K.
- 3) Telephone interviews.
All engagement concluded on Friday 18th September 2020 and we would like to thank all those who assisted, promoted and participated with the engagement activities.
The insights gained from the engagement were collated to form a report to help shape the future children and young people’s emotional wellbeing and mental health early intervention and training pathway. A copy of the report can be found here.
Next Steps
The next steps for the project are as follows:
1) Feedback will be provided to existing services based on the insight received from children and young people, parents and carers and professionals to inform any immediate service improvements.
2) Use the feedback provided to inform the model, scope and priorities within the new service offer.
Early intervention is defined as identifying and providing early support to children and young people who are at risk of poor outcomes such as mental health. Such early intervention supports the prevention of worsening health.
