At Curwen Primary school, along with other schools in Newham, we are committed to developing and improving support for our students’ social, emotional and mental wellbeing. We are therefore excited to be part of a national initiative which will involve working with a Newham Mental Health Support Team (MHST), in order to increase early help for children and young people beginning to struggle with aspects of their social and/emotional development.  The MHST comes under Newham CAMHS (East London NHS Foundation Trust), and works collaboratively with other organisations.  Schools participating in the project commit to working closely with students, parents and carers in order understand and address their views and needs and make the best use of their strengths and resources. 

In addition to providing support to parents/carers on an individual basis, the project involves the school working closely with the service to develop whole-school systems, structures and resources that support student wellbeing.  This could take the form of group or whole-class work, workshops, contributing to assemblies, support for parental involvement and staff support and training.  Involving staff, students and parents/carers in the development of all service activities is a key priority.

The workshops and group work involve students completing short, anonymous questionnaires at the start and end of the sessions in order to measure the interventions’ effectiveness. These include questions about the goals set by the class/group, e.g. “I understand how to recognise different emotions” and broader questions about how they feel – e.g. “How am I doing at school?”

If you are happy for your child to participate in any of the class or group activities then you do not need to do anything further.  If you are unsure about this and would like to discuss this further, please or contact the School Link person, (Ms Sandhu).

If you want to know more about how the team uses and stores the data we collect this can be provided upon request.

Each school accessing the service will be assigned an Educational Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP) who will get to know the school community well and provide the interventions. The EMHP will be supported by a senior member of Newham CAMHS, and a senior member of staff (Curwen Primary School- Ms Sandhu).

Please do not hesitate to contact Ms Sandhu should you like further information about the project.  A copy of this letter is here on the school website, and you will be kept informed of progress and any opportunities to contribute as they arise.