How Carlisle Eden Mind increased mental health services for children and young people (CYP) with digital therapys
Customer Profile
Carlisle Eden Mind (CE Mind) is a charity offering a range of services for children and young people (CYP) across Cumbria.
They work to educate, support and encourage the children and young people of Cumbria to understand their mental health.
Industry
- Charity/third sector/voluntary sector
- Not for profit
- Healthcare
Programmes
- Anxiety (CYP)
- Anxiety (Student)
- Depression (Student)
- Positive Body Image (Student)
- Resilience (Student)
- Stress (Student)
- Supporting an Anxious Child (CYP)
- Supporting an Anxious Teen (CYP)
During the Covid period rates of probable mental health disorders in children and young people aged between 6 and 16 years old increased from 1 in 9 to 1 in 6 .
COVID has led to a significant increase in demand for mental health support from children and young people who have the added uncertainty of the pandemic alongside the usual pressures they face, including from their studies.
Introducing the SilverCloud® by Amwell® platform has helped CE Mind to reach three times as many children and young people and provided a new, convenient and efficient way for Cumbria’s children and young people to access support and build their awareness and understanding of their mental health. It has helped CE Mind to find new ways of working and offer different support for children and young people across Cumbria.
Stigma
There remains a stigma for young people speaking up and seeking the support they need with their mental health.
Geography
Cumbria is a large and largely rural area, which brings significant logistical challenges in physically reaching young people, many of whom live some distance from CE Mind offices. This can result in significant travel time and cost.
Funding
Like all third sector organisations, CE Mind faces the ongoing challenge of securing funding to allow it to deliver its services, many of which rely on face-to-face support and require travel to cover the large geographic area of Cumbria.
Communication
Getting messages to children and young people, either directly or via schools, is vital in order to raise awareness of mental health challenges and the support that is available.
Capacity
To maximise the impact that CE Mind has, it seeks to partner with schools to help them build their own awareness, understanding and capacity to support children and young people. CE Mind has worked to support the rollout of mental health first aid in sixth form schools/ colleges to help create a well-informed group of young people who can provide help and support to their peers.
The Solution
CE Mind uses the SilverCloud® platfrom as part of a blended model of support for children and young people and schools, with the continuation of CE Mind’s face-to-face ‘Your Advocacy’ service, alongside the digital option that SilverCloud programmes provide.
It uses the SilverCloud solution in both a supported and unsupported way with invite and self-sign up within the programmes in use. In a supported capacity, children and young people receive additional coaching and support (progress review) online from a CE Mind specialist as well as have 24/7 access to clinically proven tools and programmes within the platform.
Using the platform has proved cost-effective and efficient for CE Mind, allowing it to reach more people and reduce the time they would normally spend on travel to access these people face-to-face. In some cases it has cut the support time for a review session from 2.5 hours to 15 minutes, as review sessions can be done online using the SilverCloud platform, dramatically reducing the travel time that is often required within Cumbria.
Sometimes they are not motivated to engage with mental health support from CE Mind or because they feel “others have it worse than me” or because their negative emotional experiences are affecting their motivation to engage and seek help. Having the SilverCloud digital option provides them with a convenient and low intensity way of exploring their issues online, without always the need for face-to-face support.
This has resulted in helping individuals address specific issues through the online programmes but also helped to build confidence to recognise where further face-to-face help is needed.
Before the introduction of the SilverCloud solution, CE Mind were supporting around 30 young people at any one time, on a rolling/ongoing basis. This number is nearer to 90 now that the SilverCloud programmes have been added to the CE Mind toolkit.
The SilverCloud programmes provide a different level of support - not a replacement for face-to-face and supported contact - but it allows CE Minds to reach more people - nearly three times as many at any one time.
The inclusion of digital programmes has allowed CE Mind to work differently and provide various levels of support, offering a wider menu of options for children and young people in the type of support that may work for them. The rollout of the SilverCloud solution by CE Mind has resulted successfully raising awareness of mental health issues and of the help available to local young people. In some cases, accessing the SilverCloud programmes has helped to build the confidence of young people to seek further help either online only or using the online option to then highlight the need for greater face-to-face support.
Using the SilverCloud platform has proved cost-effective and efficient for CE Mind, allowing it to reach more people and reduce the time they would normally spend on travel to access these people face-to-face.
Provide mental health services to more children and young people at a lower overall cost.
Reduce the stigma of mental health services through successfully raising awareness of mental health issues by providing children and young people an additional level of support.
Help build confidence in children and young people to understand their mental health and seek further support (if required) by providing them with a convenient online platform to access mental health information and support. of mental health issues by providing children and young people an additional level of support.