Aberdeen City Council and Scottish Action for Mental Health are partnering to offer mental health services for schoolchildren. The recent announcement of the closure of Mental Health Aberdeen, the previous provider, had led to concerns that children who needed support would no longer be able to access it.
Previous services
Mental health services, including face-to-face counselling sessions for primary and secondary schoolers, used to be provided by Mental Health Aberdeen, or MHA, a charity that had been operating for 75 years. Amidst questions about its spending, which were being investigated by the charities’ regulator, MHA’s governing body decided the only solution was to close down operations.
The abruptness of the announcement meant that there would have been no provision for children returning to schools in September.
New provision
In the face of this urgent need, Aberdeen’s city council negotiated an agreement with Scottish Action for Mental Health, or SAMH, which already provides adult mental health services in Aberdeen and across Scotland.
The plan is for a varied service that will still offer face-to-face appointments, but also text-based counselling, listening sessions with young person practitioners, and sessions specifically for parents and carers, as well as “resilience programmes” that last eight weeks. You can see from the range of mental health training courses Plymouth available at tidaltraining.co.uk/mental-health-training-courses/plymouth how varied mental health needs and services can be.
The announcement provided relief to children and their families that they would still be able to access much-needed support, although there may still be concerns about long-term viability.
