‘Early intervention means identifying and providing effective early support to children and young people who are at risk of poor outcomes. Effective early intervention works to prevent problems occurring, or to tackle them head-on when they do, before problems get worse’
Early Intervention Foundation
It has been recognised for some time that early intervention strategies may have the greatest impact on young people’s mental health and well-being. Here at Sheffield Futures we offer Door43, an early intervention mental health service with wellbeing, counselling, and social prescribing support for ages 13-25, that is used by thousands of young people each year. And, there are many other examples of excellent support available across our city, demonstrating noteworthy innovation and good practice at a service delivery level.
However, in general we are still some way off having universally available, joined up – and crucially – sustainable and stable support in place for young people. This is a challenge we are determined to play our part in working on here in Sheffield, alongside other organisations, agencies and services operating in this space.
We are strongly in favour of finding new and deeper ways to pool and share our expertise, experience, and assets to build on the level of mental health support already available to Sheffield’s young people. Together, we believe it would be possible for us to re-imagine and re-design a support network for young people that is more sustainable and stable than that which exists currently, that encourages, supports and shares innovation more readily, and invites new partners – and young people themselves – into its ongoing development.
If you are interested in Sheffield’s mental health offer to young people, we’d love to hear from you as we work to learn and build consensus around the way forward. Please get in touch!