Mental health and wellbeing in primary care services: resources

3. Children and Young People: Mental Health and Wellbeing

3.1 Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Supports and Services Framework

The Scottish Government funds local authorities to provide community-based supports and services for the mental health and wellbeing of children, young people, their families and their carers. This funding gives local partnerships the flexibility to implement services on the basis of local priorities, with a focus on prevention and early intervention and as an alternative for those for whom CAMHS is not suitable. List of email contacts can be found in Appendix 4.

The Framework aims to:

• Set out a clear broad approach for the support that children and young people should be able to access for their mental health and emotional wellbeing within their community.
• Assist local children’s services and community planning partnerships with the commissioning and establishment of new local community mental health and wellbeing supports or services or the development of existing supports and services, in line with this framework.
• Facilitate the enhancement or creation of services that can deliver support which is additional and innovative wherever these are best placed.

3.2 School Counselling

Access to school counselling will be available for all children and young people aged 10 and over. Parents/children should speak to their school or contact their local authority to find out how to access this service.

3.3 Aye Feel

Aye Feel supports young people’s emotional wellbeing with quality-assured information and expert advice. It is a resource to help young people manage their emotional wellbeing including, for example, advice on sleep, stress, body image, mindfulness and relaxation tips, contacts for mental health support organisations, Covid support, grief and bereavement support etc.

The content is made for young people by young people, and provides signposting to emotional support locally and nationally. It is run by Young Scot and is accessed through general web searches and signposting. Young Scot collects data on use of this resource.

3.4 See Me

See Me run a number of other initiatives and campaigns including:

• Feels FM: the world’s first emoji-powered jukebox for mental health, helping young people to use music to express how they are feeling and as a positive coping strategy;
• It’s Okay: helping young people to understand their feelings and reach out for support, knowing that ‘it’s OK to be different’ and ‘it’s OK to not be OK’;
• See Us: a movement that facilitates people coming together, to build on the positive changes in society, and doing something to make a difference to end mental health stigma and discrimination across Scotland.

3.5 ASK – Scottish Youth Parliament

ASK aims to support all adults who interact with children and young people – whether in the workplace, in the community or as a parent/carer – to check in on their wellbeing. If you are concerned about someone’s mental health, happiness or just want to check in, ASK can help you strike up a conversation and raise awareness of the information you need to provide the right support.

3.6 One Good Adult

The One Good Adult Job Description, which was developed as part of the work of the previous Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Joint Delivery Board, was written by children and young people and sets out what children and young people need from the adults around them to support their mental health and wellbeing.

This has been a truly collaborative development based on the voices of children and young people and provides a framework to support their mental health and wellbeing.

The implementation guidance can be found here and this includes the overview of the two pilot studies which took place in North Ayrshire and Aberdeen City.

In addition, the One Good Adult reflective web developed by North Ayrshire Council can be found on the NHS Education for Scotland website.