SF speeding access to children and young people's mental health services
A conversation with staff from Learning Space, Surrey, UK
May 5, 2024
Gill North, Sarah Charlton, Natasha Adams & introduced by Luke Goldie-McSorley
Introduced by Luke Goldie-McSorley
Learning Space, a service that is part of the Surrey (UK) Mindworks Alliance Partnership, is a mental health charity working across Surrey to improve the emotional wellbeing of children aged 5 – 18 years old. Learning Space has centres in Guildford, Redhill and Tadworth and adopts a strengths-based, solution-focused approach to meet the needs and interests of children, young people and families.
In a time when children and young people’s well-being is vitally important and still tragically under-supported and underfunded, I find myself as a practitioner who has worked directly with children and adolescents my whole career, inspired and thankful for services like Learning Space. Especially the innovative projects they embark on to make every extra difference they can to the experience and well-being of young people.
My inspiration is further fuelled by their latest project, which promotes and privileges the use of an approach very close to my heart, Solution Focus, in a truly innovative and accessible way.
I have spoken regularly about my view on using the accessibility and potency of the solution-focused methodology in moments others might not expect. This is exactly what Learning Space has done in their latest project, proving the endless possibility of the Solution Focus approach and co-production with clients.
Learning Space has designed and used a triaging system that begins to impact positively on children, young people and their families even before they have accessed the service that they hope will fit just right for them. It has received feedback from families like “We have increased optimism” and “We feel heard”. Families are a part of the design of what might lead to achieving their best hopes, truly honouring their expertise in their own life/children.
Imagine this: you arrive at the entrance to the hypothetical library of available services, and before you’ve finished looking through the map, you already begin to feel ever so slightly better, heard, more hopeful and more connected to your power and strengths.
Well, you need not imagine. Begin by listening more to Learning Space and how they bring humanity, the solution-focused approach, families’ voices, community and change work to triage and service access.
It is no surprise to me to read of the outcomes of this pilot, and I will watch with interest to see their successes grow, because, as they’ve shown, even in the earliest moments of service access, hope can be ignited.
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