Supporting Your Child's Wellbeing
The Role of the Compass Mental Health Support Team (MHST)

We understand that young people's mental health and wellbeing are a top priority for all of us. As a Mental Health Support Team, Compass are committed to providing a
supportive environment where students can thrive. As part of this commitment, we are working with your child’s school to offer a range of services to students.

What is the MHST?
The MHST is made up of a range of qualified practitioners with expertise in mental health and emotional wellbeing.

What can the MHST offer?
We are an early-intervention service offering evidence-based interventions using Low-Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).  We work in collaboration with parents, carers, and school staff to offer various forms of support, including:

• Early intervention and prevention: We promote positive mental health through assemblies, class workshops, group interventions and other whole school activities.

• Individual support: We can provide one-on-one support to children and young people facing emotional challenges such as anxiety, stress, or low mood. We do this by offering 6-8 sessions working with the child, young person and/or family and seeing them in school on a weekly basis.

• Consultation: We work with school staff to support them to identify children and young people who might benefit from our support but also to find the most appropriate support through signposting to other organisations.

How to contact us for support:
If you have any concerns about your child's mental health or well-being, please do not hesitate to contact Mrs Steatham who can be supported to make a referral to us.

Alternatively, you can also refer your child to the service by completing the referral form on our website: https://www.compass-uk.org/services/compass-birminghammhst/ or call us on 0121 227 8254.

We operate from 9am to 5pm Monday to Thursday and 9am to 4:30pm on Friday.

What happens following a referral to us?
1. We receive the referral
2. We make contact with the parents/carers to gather additional information, by telephone, to establish if our support might be the right support at the right time and to explain our service offer in more detail.
3. Following this is we feel our support would benefit the child, young person and/or family we will allocate a practitioner and offer an assessment with the young person, parent/carer either within school or online via a video call
4. Following assessment, we consider what support would be best and mightmoffer support or on some occasions we might signpost to an alternative organisation if we feel they would be better suited to support the young person receive the right support at the right time.
5. Once the intervention is complete, the child or young person will be discharged from our service so they can continue implementing the skills and strategies learned. If we feel a child or young person needs further support we would signpost and refer on to the most appropriate support.

Additional Resources
• NHS Choices: https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/mental-health-services/
• Young Minds: https://www.youngminds.org.uk/
• Pause: https://forwardthinkingbirmingham.nhs.uk/pause/