Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health
Many children and young people often find it hard to cope with everyday life because of difficult feelings, behaviour, or relationships. Most of the time when we are sad, angry, stressed or worried these feelings can pass within a few days, but if they go on for a while and stop us enjoying and coping with life, then children, young people and their families often need help.
There is a range of help and support available locally from advice to specialist interventions, all outlined below.
Online and free to access resources that we would want to promote to children and young people are:
- Little Blue Book of Sunshine a local mental health booklet aimed at teenagers, that offers lots of practical and useful advice and aims to help young people by sharing lots of tips on how to deal with many problems, such as anxiety, stress, body image, relationships, and anger. It also includes information about where to get help when they need it. The booklet is also now available in Apple Books and Google Play Books.
- Kooth is a free online counselling and emotional well-being support service providing young people aged 11-18 years (up to 19th birthday) in Berkshire West with a safe and secure means of accessing support with their emotional health and wellbeing needs from a professional team of qualified counsellors. To use the service or find out more visit www.Kooth.com
If a child and young person needs more help that this, there are a range of local services you can contact or introduce to the child and young person to self-refer.
Youth Counselling is a free to access service that offers confidential listening to support children and young people and those around them; supporting children and young people to make sense of their thoughts and feelings, so that you can make choices about what they can do to bring about changes in their life.
Anxiety and Depression Clinic (AnDY) offers assessments and treatments for children and young people with anxiety and/ or depression. Referrals come to us via BHFT’s Common Point of Entry – see details below.
Local Authority provision offers a variety of support, best described as consultation, training, assessment and early interventions by roles such as primary mental health workers.
- For Reading children and young people please use their Children’s Single Point of Access (CSPoA) either by phone on 0118 937 3641 or use the multi-agency notification form
- For Wokingham children and young people please go to BHFT’s Common Point of Entry, who provide this service.
- For West Berkshire children and young people please use their Emotional Health Triage – information found West Berkshire Council - Triage - Information
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services there is also specialist help available for a range of severe or moderate mental health difficulties whose symptoms are having a significant impact in their day to day with Berkshire Healthcare Foundation Trust (BHFT) who provide our CYPMHSs service offer.
For all new referrals please contact BHFT’s Children, Young People and Families (CYPF) Health Hub by completing our online referral form or if your referral is urgent, please phone 0300 365 1234.
Information on this available at: Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Berkshire (berkshirehealthcare.nhs.uk)
Resources available to professionals to make decisions:
- Eating disorder by partnering with BEAT, a national leading Charity on Eating Disorders and with permission from the Healthy London Partnership, the ICB have tailored a leaflet to create a Berkshire specific flyer to support educational professionals in being confident and knowledgeable to spot early signs of Eating Disorders in young people. Flyers downloadable here BEAT Flyer
Understanding Alcohol, Addictions and Mental Health
Giving Mental Health a Voice
Not Every Vulnerability or Condition is Visible
Tackling Stigma in Mental Health - Safer Care Together
Introduction to Mental Health, Dementia, Learning Disabilities and Autism
The Crisis tools to help you support young people in crisis. Improve your confidence, knowledge and skills in supporting young people in crisis. Created by young people working in partnership with mental health experts. Short, accessible video guides and text resources. All for free: https://crisistools.org.uk/
CYP National Resources for Professionals
CYP Mental Health Difficulties and Lockdown Parents and Carers Resources