News, Politics

Specialist mental health team in Nottingham schools has been ‘strong success’

By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter

---

A specialist team helping to get Nottingham children with serious mental health problems back into school has been hailed a success after helping around a dozen children return to learning – saving £850,000 in the process.

The Mental Health Improving Attendance Team (MIAT), funded by Nottingham City Council, has been working with children in primary and secondary schools who have missed classes for 15 days or more.

In 23 weeks the team has supported more than 100 children and young people, with 14 cases now closed and 12 involving children returning to education.

The “trailblazing” scheme has already saved the council more than £850,000 in costs – which would have come from providing alternative education and support to children while out of school.

Charlotte Lewis-Gordon, the manager of MIAT, said the success rate of the scheme had been “really strong” – with the majority of children in closed cases returning to some form of education, and just over half of those – around six – returning to a mainstream school.

However she said many cases remained open due to their complexity.

“They are quite complicated cases,” she said during a Schools Forum meeting on Tuesday (June 24).

“Some of these young people have not left bedrooms or houses for maybe 18 months and the thought of returning to education is huge. It is a real challenge.”

Dr Maddi Popoola, an educational psychologist and the council’s Mental Health Support Team Service (MHSTS) manager, said the scheme had helped rebuild broken relationships between schools and households.

She said the improving attendance team had saved the council more than £1.332m, offset by the £480,000 cost of the MIAT team.

The scheme has therefore produced a saving of £852,000.

“It has been really, really positive, I feel,” she said.

Bulwell Academy principle, Matt Irons, a member of the Schools Forum, added: “It is great work. These programmes work because they are personalised and relational. This is almost a drop in the ocean because within our schools we have got a significant number of additional children as well.

“I do wonder whether there is any scope for you, your members of your team, coming in to talk to us about how we can better develop our own internal systems?

“Clearly this has got great evidence.”

Dr Popoola said: “The funding for this scheme ends January 2026 which is rubbish.

“I am constantly plotting about how I can make sure things continue, so I do have a bit of a plan.

“Part of that plan is to look at how we can use the current [Mental Health Support Team] offer, as you know we do a lot of assemblies, a lot of workshops, so how we can embed this work into our key performance indicators so it can continue.

“The uniqueness of the pathway is something to shout about because there is no other local authority that have mental health support teams funded within the local authority.

“I think that we’ve been able to develop something quite unique. I know through connections with other local authorities and health services a lot of people are interested in what we are doing here as a trailblazer model.”