Barnardo's St Helens Resilience Service

The Resilience Service have a designated therapist or mental health practitioner (MHP) attached to each of the secondary schools in St Helens (including Rainford, Billinge, Newton le Willows and Haydock) and they deliver drop ins, group work and 1 to 1 brief therapy.

The Resilience Service works with young people experiencing low level emotional wellbeing concerns and aims to support young people to build resilience. Referrals can come from any source including professionals and parents/carers, and young people can directly self-refer. In each of the 9 secondary schools in St Helens, we have regular drop in sessions which young people can attend to speak to the therapist/MHP about how they are feeling. They may be given signposting or resources at the drop in session and/or this may lead to a referral into the service where they can access 1 to 1 therapy sessions or group work.

The 1 to 1 brief therapy is delivered over 3-6 sessions usually face to face in school and online is an option if young people prefer. The group work is usually delivered face to face in school and is designed around what young people tell us they need. To date, these have included: the Decider Life Skills course, Calm Skills group for managing anxiety, Resilience and Aspirations, Self Esteem and Body Image, and WRAP groups. We also deliver some groups online to give flexibility and choice to young people on how they engage.

We provide support for parents/carers through our individual and group parent consultations. Individual parent consultations can be booked with the therapist/MHP’s in the school via our referral process and we offer group bite-size online sessions to share information and strategies for parent/carers to support their young person. These include Calm Skills – supporting your young person with their anxiety and Self Harm awareness. These are also available as pre-recorded sessions that can be sent out to parents/carers.

We provide drop in support for school staff every half term where they are able to access support for their wellbeing. We also deliver bespoke training to school staff and run group wellbeing sessions.

Additionally, we are working with GP surgeries and in the community to improve emotional wellbeing and resilience and reduce the number of young people going on to need a formal referral into mental health and wellbeing services.

The main functions of the Emotional Wellbeing & Resilience Programme:

1. Workforce Development
2. Direct Delivery Support for Schools
3. Multi-agency Collaborative Working

For more information please visit the Barnardo's website - St Helens Resilience Service

You can also find us on Instagram @barnardoswellbeingsth