Written evidence from Rathbone Training (CMH0157)
Rathbone Training is a UK-wide youth charity focused on helping young people to realise their potential and achieve their goals – whether that is a job, a place at college, a traineeship, an apprenticeship, work placement or employment. We believe that given the right opportunities and support, all young people can learn, progress and achieve success in their chosen careers and become young adults who play a positive part in our society. Key facts:
2.1 Rathbone strongly believe that there is a need to prioritise services for young people, particularly those from deprived backgrounds, with chaotic lifestyles and those at risk of becoming part of a ‘lost generation’. Developing critical thinking skills, resilience and good mental health are essential for young people navigating these challenges.
2.2 Mental health support services for young people must fully recognise that we cannot tackle mental health in isolation. We need a holistic approach that acknowledges that many young people experience a range of interconnected issues. Rathbone actively supports the integration of the employability and health agenda and we have developed strong partnerships at a local level with providers and charities focusing on individuals with a range of disability and health conditions, including mental health.
2.3 Rathbone believe that a key feature of mental health services should be a focus on engagement of hard-to-reach cohorts to ensure that those who most need help receive it.
2.4 The young people we work with tell us that their experience of accessing support has often made them feel ‘processed’. They tell us that they want a community-based approach that allows for a less ‘medicalised’ and more informal route to support.
2.5 Consultation with the young people we work with has shaped our offer and, consequently, flexible and accessible support is built into all our services and informs all that we do. Our offer includes:
3.1 Prioritising young people: Rathbone strongly believe that there is a need to prioritise services for young people, particularly those from deprived backgrounds, with chaotic lifestyles and those at risk of becoming part of a ‘lost generation’. Young people face significant challenges as they transition from education to employment and childhood to adulthood – during these years they can be emotionally vulnerable; they have to negotiate (or re-negotiate) their relationships with friends, parents, teachers, partners, employers and co-workers; they may experience problems with identity and popularity; face pressures around fitting in and concerns about qualifications and employment. Research informing the Prevent agenda suggests that vulnerable young people may be the target of radicalisation or sexual exploitation. This is further exacerbated by factors such as an unstable economy, social media and the 24/7 culture. Developing critical thinking skills, resilience and good mental health are essential for young people navigating these challenges.
3.2 Transitioning years: There is mounting evidence that young people face an increasingly challenging backdrop to their transitioning years. Increasingly we are recognising that work is a positive mental health outcome, work is good for people’s health, wellbeing and recovery. However, young people continue to experience difficulties in acquiring fair work. This is not simply a product of the current economic instability; youth unemployment has been increasing in the UK since 2004, suggesting an underlying structural problem.
3.3 Growing demand: Across the services we provide for young people, we are seeing a significantly increased need for mental health support. The rising demand is also reflected in national statistics. The Independent reports that rates of depression and anxiety among teenagers have increased by 70 per cent in the past 25 years. They further note that in a 2016 survey for Parent Zone, 93 per cent of teachers reported seeing increased rates of mental illness among children and teenagers and 90 per cent thought the issues were getting more severe[1].
Rathbone believe that, in part, the increased demand is a consequence of austerity measures and the cuts to youth services; we are currently experiencing the impact of cuts made to those preventive youth services over recent years. In a recent report, A Future at Risk: cuts in youth services[2] it is noted, “More and more young people are falling through the gaps left by a lack of services. The choices that this government is making are damaging young people’s life chances, worsening their mental health, and increasing the possibility of them getting into trouble, as they are open to abuse and potentially at risk of becoming involved in serious youth violence.”
3.4 Complex / multiple barriers: Mental health support services for young people must fully recognise that we cannot tackle mental health in isolation. We need a holistic approach that acknowledges that many young people experience a range of interconnected issues, for example family and relationship problems, debt, homelessness, substance abuse and unemployment. School, college and community based approaches can support young people to identify their particular issues and develop a personalised plan to help them address their specific needs.
Rathbone actively supports the integration of the employability and health agenda. Along with our sister organisation Intraining, Rathbone has developed strong partnerships at a local level with providers and charities focusing on individuals with a range of disability and health conditions, including mental health. We have conducted roundtable sessions with our strategic partners to raise awareness of employability and health and to develop effective, integrated services for our clients.
3.5 Engagement: Rathbone believe that a key feature of mental health services should be a focus on engagement of hard-to-reach cohorts to ensure that those who most need help receive it. We know that many young people prefer to access / receive support from a trusted adult on ‘neutral’ territory rather than in the home or at school. Rathbone works with some of the UK’s most disadvantaged young people who are furthest from the labour market and our engagement activity takes many forms, for example, street engagement, activities centred around sport and music, providing multiple referral routes and working with young people and partners to co-design our services to ensure they are both sensitive and relevant.
From our work with young people we know that engagement must be flexible and achieve a ‘fit’ with young people. For example, to encourage young people to attend appointments we use texts and phone calls rather than formal letters. We offer drop in services so that young people can access the support they need, when they need. The case study at the end of this submission provides an example of how this translates into practice.
3.6 Support for young people
The young people we work with tell us that their experience of accessing support has often made them feel ‘processed’. They tell us that they want a community-based approach that allows for a less ‘medicalised’ and more informal route to support. For example, our learners report that they value the pastoral support we offer as it provides the opportunity for informal, non-judgemental, supportive discussions and signposting to further relevant support
We hold monthly themed Youth Forums across all of our centres; these allow young people to feedback and to input in to the design and delivery of our services. In recent Youth Forums we have explored the topics of health and resilience. Our young people told us that the three most important health issues affecting young people are mental health, stress and anger management and alcohol, drugs and smoking. Participants suggested that mental health sessions are delivered as part of enrichment and recommended that confidence building and teambuilding sessions should be used to help young people improve their self-esteem and be able to respond to peer pressure.
We also hold an annual National Youth Conference (NYC), generating input from 80 learner representatives at a residential conference. This is an important forum for young people to identify and debate their priorities and to articulate the challenges they face. It is also an essential component of our business planning process, allowing us to continuously improve our services. Our NYC highlights the breadth of concerns that young people have and it is evident that these link to mental health issues. In last year’s conference they identified:
3.7 Quality processes: Our quality processes are a key feature of the support we provide to young people. Through these processes we can ensure that our services support all young people, including those with challenges such as mental health issues, disabilities (or any of the nine protected categories). We produce monthly outcome reports through which we measure performance against a range of criteria. For example, through this data we explore performance by age group, equality and diversity criteria and qualification level. Each month we undertake a ‘Deep Dive’ report, exploring any difference in performance, for example, difference across different cohorts or geography. In this way we can identify any gaps in achievement and put an improvement plan in place.
In this section we set out a few examples of how Rathbone supports young people with mental health problems.
4.1 Rathbone Resilience Curriculum: The resilience curriculum is designed to help all of our learners to bounce back from negative experiences in their lives as we support them to progress into the world of work. Through this programme learners will:
4.2 Rathbone Counselling Service: Intraining, our sister organisation has introduced their own counselling and psychotherapy support service to meet the needs of clients. The therapy models they deliver include:
Through these services, Intraining has successfully supported people back into employment. Rathbone are currently exploring how this service can be adapted to meet the needs of the young people we work with. We are rolling out the ‘Empowerment Programme’ which provides participants with a knowledge of the fundamentals of emotional intelligence and builds resilience in a programme which is delivered half-day a week over a 10 week period covering:
4.3 Case study: X-CEED (Extra Coaching to Engage and Expand Development)
Overview: The aim of this project to provide one-to-one support to young people, improving their life chances by providing intensive support to overcome the barriers they face to moving on and into education or employment.
Demand for Mental Health Support: Our project staff report that they are increasingly called upon to provide support that would previously have been provided by other agencies at a much earlier stage. Increasingly we find that local services have been withdrawn or reduced and staff report they are spending significant time intensively supporting participants who are at risk of dropping out as they cannot access the mental health support when they require it.
In particular, young people are experiencing problems with severe anxiety and depression. We have also found that learning difficulties is a problem, schools do not have the capacity to provide the support these young people require and this can lead to isolation and mental health issues.
Engagement is a key element of X-CEED: Through the project we work with young people aged 14-25 that have been through the care and youth justice systems and those who are vulnerable and hard-to-reach. In particular, we support engagement though our multiple referral routes and through working with young people to design the service to ensure it is sensitive, relevant to their needs and aligned to their preferences for accessing information and support.
Personalised Support: we recognise that the young people face multiple barriers and we provide community-based, wrap-around support, working with individual young people to develop a plan that identifies root problems they face and sets out steps for addressing these. By focusing on strengthening resilience we develop young people’s confidence in making decisions, overcoming setbacks and asking for help, providing them with the tools and that will help them tackle these issues throughout their lives.
Importance of Partnership: we work in partnership with young people, parents, guardians and carers, Scottish Government, Skills Development Scotland, Local Authorities, Community Planning Partnerships, VCS organisations, community Groups, NHS, national and local employers, voluntary sector and other strategy partners to identify and meet the particular challenges that exist. This is a key ingredient to addressing the multiple barriers young people face and providing the personalised approach they require.
January 2017
6
[1] Teenage mental health crisis: rates of depression have soared in past 25 years, Geraldine Bell, The Independent, 27 February 2016. Accessed 20 January 2017
[2] A Future at Risk: cuts in youth services, Unison, 2016