Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Joint Delivery Board minutes: December 2022

Welcome and introductions

HMc chaired the meeting.

The Chair welcomed everyone to the tenth board meeting and provided apologies.

The Chair summarised that board members had received the final set of the Task and Finish group final reports and recommendations, and the chart with the recommendations from the previous six groups. Chair thanked everyone for attending the ‘next steps’ workshop in November which allowed board and Task and Finish group members to discuss Public Health Scotland’s interim findings.

The Chair invited AD to provide an update from the workshop with the children’s services planning strategic leads network which took place on the 8 December. AD acknowledged this board had previously agreed to explore the integration of some of this board’s work into children’s service planning. The session provided an opportunity to explore this further and have discussions with leads around how the system operates. Officials will work with this group to explore further.

The Chair invited HA to provide an update from the ‘next steps’ workshop held in November. HA provided an overview of the workshop, which brought together board and Task and Finish Group members to highlight what each Task and Finish groups were progressing and to hear from Public Health Scotland (PHS) on the interim reflections of the review they are currently undertaking. Public Health Scotland talked about challenges and strengths across the work of the board. 

Discussion points included:

• welcoming more information on mental health for consideration in children services planning
• a key theme across discussions was around funding; important to consider how the work being taken forward will be funded
• there needs to be further exploration around reporting demands associated with funding.  There is also interest in aligning reporting with health boards too

A full report from this session will be considered by COSLA and Scottish Government shortly with actions taken forward appropriately.

Final Report Task and Finish group 3 – Support Mental Health pathways and services for children and young people in vulnerable situations and in need of care and protection, aligned to the work of the promise.

The Chair invited DL to present the final report. DL provided the background to the Task and Finish Group’s deliverable and shared the work of the group. DL acknowledged the group had initially spent time understanding the context and systems for care experienced children and young people and children and young people in vulnerable situations. This included existing evidence, lived experience and work around the promise and care review. DL highlighted the top achievements of the group including the relationship with stakeholders including Who Cares? Scotland and their members with lived experiences, as well as the development of resources. DL presented the recommendations to the members.  

The Chair invited the board’s comments on the recommendations. The following points were raised:

• pleased how the work has been taken forward aligned to the principles of the promise and aligned to GIRFEC. This needs to be up front and explicit in the report
• welcome the co-production with children and young people
• acknowledgement that this is the group of children and young people in most need that we should be most concerned about supporting and prioritising – the system at the moment isn’t geared up for this (including CAMHS), how do we ensure they have access to these services?  
• the board noted the work has focused on care experienced children and young people, but the recommendations address children in vulnerable situations which is still ill defined. More clarity would be welcomed
• recommend embedding the mental health and wellbeing response within the implementation plan for the promise: in particular, how can we make the care children and young people receive both sensitive to equalities needs and previous experienced trauma; and also therapeutic and nurturing as its core purpose. This should include professionals not always available in social work and care services approaching young people rather than solely referral base
• the recommendations need to have more of a focus on who/where/what/why/ when/how and be specific and measurable   
• the board noted for reference that the timeframe for implementation of the promise was 10 years
• useful to explore the tension between the ask for non-stigmatising services in the promise and the ask for specific supports as highlighted in the in the who cares ‘tend our light’ report
• comments from board also included that children and young people should be directly involved in governance, not just in co-design and when identifying board members for the new board this should include care experienced people
• across all services, there needs to be clarity about how key information regarding children and young people’s mental health, wellbeing, feelings and concerns will be recorded and used to support them.
• the board noted there needed to be a  breakdown of straightforward steps to move us forward

Summary of actions

• points above to be considered in revision of the recommendations for Task and Finish Group 3
• once the resources have been finalised they will be brought to the board for agreement

Board members supported the recommendations but require some refining to focus on solutions. This will be taken into account when producing the final Joint Delivery Board recommendations.

Final report Task and Finish group 6 - education and training

Chair invited AS to present the final report. AS provided an overview of the background to the group and the five workstreams it has progressed. A representative from NES attended each of the different Task and Finish groups and there were cross over meetings with delivering lead to identify training and education needs. Important to ensure that the workstreams also aligned with the Workforce Strategy and Suicide Prevention Strategy, Trauma, and Perinatal and Infant Mental Health work.

SOC provided more detail on the resources and provided a demonstration presenting a digital training package produced through the Task and Finish Group  including the one good adult Job description, First point of contacts & signposting, digital learning map, the training and evaluation toolkit linked to the kilpatrick model and the promise sway resource. The resources will be disseminated  through multiple routes and will be available through TURAS in the coming weeks.

The Chair welcomed comments from board members on the recommendations.  The following points were raised:

• links across to the workforce strategy welcomed
• recommendations are practicable, tangible and helpful
• the challenge overall will be whether the workforce will have capacity to use the new resources effectively
• there needs to be clarity on which staff/workforce the recommendations refer to and how these resources will be disseminated

• a need was identified to be clear on ownership of resources and the importance of ensuring there is appropriate resource to maintain and support the training materials going forward
• It was suggested, given the vast amount of mental health information already available, and the clarity these resources may collectively offer, that they are disseminated together
• the possibility of a champion for the mental health resources at local level was proposed
• explore support from the Improvement Service to help embed the resource locally
• need to ensure workforce know TURAS is available to anyone and not just available to NHS staff
• referring to the first point of contact resource, “whomever first comes in contact with a young person with a mental health issue and how they respond and support that person to get effective help.” This is vital, young people should be able to get support from the adult of their choice

Positive to see the engagement with children, young people, parents, carers, and trusted adults in relation to the above resources should be planned. Clarity required on how this will be taken forward

Chair summary and actions

Board members broadly supported the recommendations.  These and subsequent board discussions on them, will be taken into account when producing the final Joint Delivery Board recommendations.

SOC and AS will look to provide clarity on the recommendation pertaining to workforce and in relation to the ownership of, and work required to maintain resources so that this can be considered in finalising recommendations.

Summary of recommendations

The Chair highlighted the updated summary of the recommendations since the last meeting.

The Chair invited members to identify and build on emerging themes and discuss learning from the recommendations to date, and the early findings from the PHS review and the feedback from the next steps workshop in November. Key discussion points included:

• acknowledging the capacity of the workforce and a need to ensure the tone of the final recommendations is appropriate
• the need to consider affordability and the need to look towards long term funding
• achievability and setting realistic goals to achieve rather than aspirational ones

• the previous discussions have emphasised the need to take a whole system approach across the Joint Delivery Board recommendations and have internal coherence across wider Scottish Government policy teams

Summarise any agreed actions going forward

Chair highlighted that CW and HA would be considering all the discussion points and recommendations from all Task and Finish Groups to produce a final report. Final recommendations will be shared with members prior to the meeting in February.

Mental Health Strategy

The Chair invited CT and NA to present an update on the progress of the mental health strategy.

The Chair invited comments from members of the board

• members were encouraged to take some time to process what they had heard from the presentation and come back to the mental health strategy team with any comments.

Any other business and close   

The final meeting will take place on 9 February 2023 followed by a Learning and Sharing event in March. A report summarising the final set of draft recommendations for consideration will be issued in advance of the next meeting.

The Chair thanked everyone for attending and contributing to presentations and discussions. The Chair finished the meeting wishing everyone a very peaceful and happy festive break.

Attendees and apologies

• Hugh McAloon (Chair) Scottish Government
• Nicola Dickie (Chair), COSLA (Convention of Scottish Local Authorities)
• Aileen Blower (AB), Mental Health and Social Care Directorate, Scottish Government
• Abbie Wright (AB), MSYP (Member of the Scottish Youth Parliament)
• Carrie Lindsay (CL), Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (ADES)
• Hannah Axon (HA), Cosla
• Martin Dorchester (MD), Children in Scotland (CiS) Forum Representative
• Paul Carberry (PC), Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland (CCPS) Forum representative
• Richmond Davies (RD), NHS Chief Executives
• Rosy Burgess (RB), Scottish Youth Parliament (MSYP support)
• Angela Davidson (AD), Scottish Government
• Michael Chalmers, Director of Children and Families
• Hugh Masters (HM), Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Programme Board

Support

• David Leitch (DL), Mental Health and Social Care Directorate, Scottish Government
• Carolyn Wales (CW), Mental Health and Social Care Directorate, Scottish Government
• Leon Young, Mental Health and Social Care Directorate, Scottish Government
• Maggie Fallon(MF), Mental Health and Social Care Directorate, Scottish Government
• Peter Innes (PI), Mental Health and Social Care Directorate, Scottish Government
• Emma Papakyriakou, (EP) Mental Health and Social Care Directorate, Scottish Government
• Eilidh Shearer (ES), Mental Health and Social Care Directorate, Scottish Government
• Annemieke Bikker (AB) Mental Health and Social Care Directorate, Scottish Government

Apoligies

• Morven Graham (MG) ASPEP
• Amanda Farquharson (AF), Integration Joint Board (IJB) Network
• Angela Scott (AS), SOLACE
• Cheryl Burnett (CB), National Parents Forum of Scotland (NPFS)
• Judy Thomson (JT), NHS Education for Scotland (NES)
• Alison Taylor (AT), Deputy Director: Improvement Attainment and Wellbeing, Learning Directorate, Scottish Government
• Caroline Hiscox, NHS Grampian
• Laura Meikle (LM), Improvement Attainment and Wellbeing, Learning Directorate, Scottish Government
• Ruth Miller (RM), Sponsor T&F group 3, Association of Scottish Principal Educational Psychologists (ASPEP)
• Maureen McAteer (MAc), Sponsor T&F group 3, Barnardos
• David Gibson, Sponsor T&F group 3, SWS

Items and actions

Children and Young People's Mental Health and Wellbeing Joint Delivery Board