Increasing children’s resilience to mental health issues

Maldon District Council worked on a prototype project to understand the support requirements for school children transitioning from year 6 to year 7. The aim of the project was to identify children who may be going under the radar with unaddressed mental health concerns and would require support in transitioning from primary to secondary school.

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The project team worked with schools across Maldon District Council and the third sector to produce a questionnaire to be filled out by year 6 teachers ahead of their students move to secondary school. Children with a score of 12 and below would be identified as at risk of a poor transition and possible mental health challenges. As a result of the scores, additional resources can be better targeted by schools and support agencies to those who need them. An improved flow of information can be provided to families and between primary and secondary schools, to ensure the child’s resilience is strengthened as early on as possible so they have a better transition from year 6 to year 7.

The first of these questionnaires were distributed in March 2020 following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown. The evaluation process is ongoing as the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the schools normal programme of transition to year 7. Initial feedback from one of the secondary schools who embedded the template into their transition paperwork was extremely positive. They were able to fully implement the template and were very pleased with the results and the template itself. For the first time they have been able to identify children who may ‘go under the radar’ using the ‘easy to use’ traffic light system. They said that they will absolutely be using the template moving forward. The schools will be asked to complete an evaluation tool which will capture data and show outcomes achieved. The schools will look to complete these when they return in September/October 2020. The project team are now working with the Mid Essex Childrens Partnership Board for it to be embedded into one of its priorities. From there, it will be taken to the three other Partnership Boards across the county. These boards are a subset from the Essex Childrens Partnership Board, of which is chaired by an Essex County Council Councillor and whom is the deputy portfolio holder of Children and Families for Essex.

Contact:

[email protected], Maldon District Council

[email protected], Barnardo’s 

[email protected], LGA