Supporting Children and Young People Experiencing a Mental Health Crisis - easy read version

Our principles

A child or young person having a mental health crisis might ask different services for help. All those services should work with these principles:

• Meet the child or young person’s needs wherever they need help.

• Focus on fairness, equality and rights.

• Be aware that the child or young person might have trauma and understand how it affects them. Trauma is how people react to upsetting events or situations.

• Listen to what children and young people need before and after a crisis. Change the support if their needs change.

Local areas should work together to plan what type of support is needed for local children and young people. This could include supports such as:

• Safe spaces
• Peer support groups

• Family support hubs
• Additional training for non-specialist workers

• Special services for high risk groups
• Out of hours support and advice for staff

• Face to face support through digital services like online support and text based services.

Who this document is for

This document is for staff in all services that help children and young people who are having a mental health crisis.

This can include education, health, social work, charities, emergency services like the police, and youth work. These can all play a key role in children and young people’s lives.

Each child and young person’s mental health crisis is different. It can depend on their age, the cause of the crisis, and other things that are happening in their lives.

Any response to the crisis must be person-centred, aware of trauma, caring and must meet the needs of the child or young person. Person centred means an individual’s needs and wishes are what matters most.