Agenda item

To update the Community and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee on children’s mental health and wellbeing, including an update on CAMHS.

Councillor Grahl (Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Schools) introduced the report, which she highlighted was an area of considerable past challenge and public interest. CAMHS was a relatively new service nationally which had struggled with large increases in demand, particularly since the pandemic, and long waiting lists in many boroughs. The report highlighted that the waiting list had reduced substantially over the previous few months, and the Thrive model was being implemented to provide early intervention and prevent ill mental health from escalating and affecting other areas of young people’s lives. As a Council, Brent favoured this early intervention and multi-disciplinary approach and welcomed feedback from the Committee on working with partners to accelerate the programme. Nigel Chapman (Corporate Director Children and Young People, Brent Council) added that it was acknowledged there were issues with CAMHS waiting lists nationally, but that mental health and wellbeing support was not available via CAMHS only, with many children not requiring that level of intervention.

The Chair thanked Councillor Grahl and Nigel Chapman for the introduction and invited comments and questions from those present, with the following issues raised:

The Chair invited the headteachers present to respond to how schools were implementing their mental health support offer. Jayne Jardine (CEO and Executive Headteacher, The Rise Partnership Trust) highlighted that schools across Brent were doing a lot of work in the mental health and wellbeing arena, including attending national training offered by DfE. Schools were rapidly improving their processes and procedures and recognising the high importance of mental health for pupils and families. She highlighted the national campaign ‘no shame, no blame’ in supporting the work of schools on mental health.

Georgina Nutton (Headteacher, Preston Park Primary School) advised the Committee that the most prevalent mental health conditions they were seeing at Preston Park Primary School were anxiety and depression. The school were focused on creating the conditions necessary to enable children to talk openly about mental health, which stemmed from its vision for every child to be safe, happy and kind. The school had a strong vision and values running through the curriculum, including the hidden curriculum of pastoral support, emotion coaching, and language and communication with their children. In addition, the school worked with many external agencies, such as ‘Place 2 Be’, which was the counselling service. In particular, the school was working on upskilling staff and ensuring all staff were trauma trained.

Judith Enright (Headteacher, Queens Park Community School) added that, at Queens Park Community School, since the pandemic, there had been a sense of young people not having a trusted adult in school as that relationship had been disrupted over the 2 periods of lockdown. The school had needed to rebuild those relationships. She also commended the work of Family Wellbeing Centres, acknowledging that parents were in their own mental health crises and Family Wellbeing Centres had been offering parenting courses and support groups which in turn helped young people with their own mental health. Those Centres engaged many stakeholders, such as citizens advice and NHS partners.

In relation to engagement with other stakeholders such as parents, Georgina Nutton highlighted that Preston Park School had done a lot of work to build relationships and host forums for young people, parents and school staff to talk about mental health in an open conversation. There were events at school where families were brought in such as coffee mornings to bring that conversation to the forefront.

Councillor Grahl added that, as well as schools, the Council worked with other stakeholders and partners in relation to children’s mental health and wellbeing. The report highlighted the Council’s partnership with the Anna Freud Centre, and there was also a project with Barnardo’s for looked after children which concerned health and wellbeing. Shirley Parks (Director Safeguarding Partnerships and Strategy, Brent Council) added that health partners had commissioned an organisation to work with young people to understand mental health and wellbeing, called Thrive. The organisation’s focus was on empowering young people to feel safe to talk about their mental health and wellbeing and address stigma. Bespoke mental health first aid training had also been offered to young people to ensure there was peer support, as many young children were more comfortable looking to their peers for support.

The Chair thanked headteachers for their contributions to the Committee meeting that evening and led a round of applause for teachers across the borough. The Committee then moved on to questions for officers.

The Committee noted that the take up of DfE grant funding to support the training of school mental health leads was at 48%, and asked how that could be further increased. Sharon Buckby (Head of Inclusion and Brent Virtual School, Brent Council) advised the Committee that the way in which that support offer had been delivered previously had been viewed by schools as not adding value, but the DfE had subsequently changed direction and were delivering that grant programme differently, so Brent was seeing a slow increase in uptake as a result.

In terms of the waiting lists for CAMHS, the Committee were advised that there were 504 children waiting for assessment at the beginning of 2022, and by December 2022 that number had gone down to just below 100. In December 2022 alone, there had been 157 referrals to CAMHS and then additional referrals in February 2023, meaning that at the beginning of March 2023, the numbers of children that had been assessed and were waiting for CAMHS interventions was 304 children.

The Committee asked at what stage a school would engage the services of a psychologist for a child. Sarah Nyandoro (Head of Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism – All Age, NHS North West London) explained that there had been an increase in the number of referrals going to specialist CAMHS, but it had been identified that some children and young people did not specifically need the type of intervention CAMHS provided, and some of those children and young people had benefited more from talking therapies through IAPT for children. Psychological therapies were being provided for children and young people through the Brent Centre for Young People.

The report noted that Brent had the lowest funding in NWL for mental health services for children despite high demand, and the Committee asked officers to explain the challenges of that lack of funding and its impact on the delivery of services. Sarah Nyandoro highlighted that funding was a historic issue, and that Brent had historically been underfunded across mental health services as a whole, as well as specifically for children. The Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) in Brent had continued to raise the issue at NWL level to ensure Brent received additional investment in order to bring Brent to the same level as the other 7 NWL boroughs. They were looking at this through the lens of levelling up, but did not yet have a definitive answer as to if Brent would receive that levelling up. They were also lobbying for mental health investment going forward. In addition, Brent had been working with different groups to provide additional support. For example, Brent had currently started working with the Young Brent Foundation, which provided education, training, employment, advice and podcasts for young people to share their experiences and get support from other young people. Brent Young People Thrive provided tier 2 counselling support. As such, Brent was not relying solely on specialist CAMHS to support children, but were looking at what other services could be accessed in Brent to support children. In addition to the funding gap, there was also challenges in recruitment for CAMHS being experienced nationally, and therefore Brent had increased capacity within IAPT. In terms of numbers, officers had identified that around £800k would be needed to bring Brent to a levelling up position, not including the additional mental health investment allocated each year for mental health.

The Chair thanked those present for their contributions and brought the discussion to an end.

An information request was raised during the discussion, recorded as follows:

For the Committee to receive data on which mental health conditions were most prevalent in children and young people in Brent, and for this to be included in future reports to the Committee