Hundreds of children in Knowsley will be able to access a new mental health service, which was set up after the pandemic revealed gaps in current provision.
The service, run by Listening Ear, will launch in October and is intended to provide a “more general” support service than previously on offer in the borough.
Speaking at a meeting of Knowsley Council’s health and wellbeing board, held last night (September 22) at Huyton municipal buildings, commissioning manager Lynsey Birch said: “When we looked at our contracts that we commissioned it tended to be for cohorts or individuals, such as children with domestic violence, looked after children, young people suffering bereavement.”
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However, for children with more general anxiety there was “not necessarily a service” for those who weren’t of secondary school age.
Ms Birch said: “Essentially we’ve now, over the summer, have done another contract in terms of the new mental health and well being contract for children.”
Jointly commissioned with the NHS, the service for 400 children has “used all that learning over the pandemic and from the years before as this has been in play for a little while around how do children want to access what’s the way we can get and make sure we can get to them”
Asking where the figure of 400 came from, Cllr Jackie Harris asked: “Is that children from our borough?”
Responding, Ms Birch confirmed the figure of the service being for 400 children referred to young people in Knowsley.
Ms Birch said: “We came to that decision because we looked at referrals coming through and whether they were appropriate for that service or could have been managed at a lower level or those that needed to escalate, and that was allowing for some buffer as well depending on need.”
She added: “We want to use this as an opportunity to create a platform for bringing all that good provision together, all that extra provision [from the pandemic].
“We found that in some of our other contracts that aren’t necessarily mental health contracts that everybody has a part to play in children and young people’s mental health.”
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