Visit Merseyside Youth AssociationMYA

Merseyside Youth Association

"She promised me she wouldn’t share the photo, now the whole school’s seen it." Zac

"I think she’s having too many bad days and not enough good ones - I’m not sure how I can help her." Mum

Workforce benefits

As a professional trained in delivery of Youth Connect 5 you will obtain additional knowledge and skills in mental wellbeing as well as training delivery, supporting your own CPD and the organisation’s strengths.

In addition to this, general your own health and wellbeing may also be improved. We know that many in the workforce will also be parents/carers who themselves will experience challenging times as a parent.

Workplace absenteeism and presenteeism due to stress is at an all-time high. In 2014/15 stress accounted for 35% of all work related ill health cases and 43% of all working days lost due to ill health.
(Health & Safety Executive www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/causdis/stress )

Future in Mind

One of the themes identified in “Future in Mind” (FIM) report is ‘promoting resilience, prevention and early intervention’ Responding to the vision FIM, Youth Connect 5 uses a prevention approach by enabling key members of the workforce to up-skill families and carers.

The Government’s aspirations are that by 2020 we would see:

    • Empowered young people (and parents) to self-care
    • Improved public awareness and understanding, where people think and feel differently about mental health issues for children and young people where there is less fear and where stigma and discrimination are tackled
    • Improved access for parents to evidence-based programmes of intervention and support to strengthen attachment between parent and child; build resilience and improve behaviour.

Future In Mind locally

There is evidence that supporting families and carers, building resilience through to adulthood and supporting self-care reduces the burden of mental and physical ill health over the whole life course, reducing the cost of future interventions, improving economic growth and reducing health inequalities.

This programme supports Future In Mind locally, encouraging a wide range of professionals to be involved across universal, targeted and specialist services, to:

    1. Promote good mental wellbeing and resilience, by supporting children and young people and their families to adopt and maintain behaviours that support good mental health; and
    2. Prevent mental health problems from arising, by taking early action with children, young people and parents who may be at greater risk.
    3. Develop a conversation – create the space for an open conversation about children and young people’s mental health. Children, young people and their parents/carers need clearer awareness of what is good mental health and what is poor mental health, as well as better information about how to keep mentally and emotionally healthy
    4. Give children and young people and their parents/carers clearer awareness of how to recognise when they might have a mental health problem as well as where and how to get help, clarity about what help is available, what might happen when they access it, and what to do while they are waiting.

Key messages for school staff

As a key target group, evidence shows that if parents/carers can be supported to better manage their children’s behaviour, alongside work being carried out with the child at school, there is a much greater likelihood of success in reducing the child’s problems and in supporting their academic and emotional development. Many support services will work to support the family as well as the child that has been referred. (Mental health and behaviour in schools, Departmental advice for school staff, Department of Education 2016)

Providing parents/carers with coping strategies and techniques to improve emotional wellbeing and resilience can help improve the relationship between parents/carers and their children and improve the child’s behaviour.

This programme will support and build on skills/techniques to strengthen family relationships and family resilience, which will support skills in listening and communicating with their children and teach an understanding of behaviour in the context of relationships.