Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust is committed to transformation to develop an integrated provision for children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. A key priority is to bring specialist mental health support into local communities through a different relationship between GPs, education, primary care and community services and specialist mental health/wellbeing services. The Psychology in Schools Team has been working in Suffolk to do just this.

The Psychology in Schools Team aims to support the development of whole-community approaches in schools across Suffolk. They endeavour to do this in co-production with the children, parents, teachers and communities of a school. Feedback from their work suggests that students, parents and teachers highly value an approach which allows them to learn how to take care of their own and support their young person's wellbeing. Our workshops aim to provide parents with information and guidance around mental health and emotional wellbeing using an accessible and interactive format. This format encourages the sharing of experiences of parents, enabling them to feel understood, less isolated, as well as providing opportunities to learn from one another.

The team is made up of senior mental health clinicians who have worked in specialist mental health services. They have both generic and specialist skills and are trained across the life-span to work with both children and adults.

For information on our earlier workshops, how to access the recordings, and links to other aspects of NSFT, please visit our website: https://www.nsft.nhs.uk/parent-workshops .

The NSFT Psychology in Schools Team also offers an online parent/carer workshop program that addresses childhood neurodiversity and covers key topics that families have identified as most helpful. These workshops are offered to support families on the neurodevelopmental (NDD) pathway in Suffolk.