Helping young people bounce back from life’s challenges

PROUD: Gail Teasdale. Picture by Neil Holmes Photography

Young people’s mental health support service HeadStart Hull recently secured funding until June 2022. Programme manager Gail Teasdale told Rick Lyon what it means for the city

“It’s about helping young people talk about feelings and emotions and worries, knowing how to find a trusted adult to talk to and, if they do need some support, getting them in as soon as possible,” says Gail Teasdale.

“It’s about having a preventative approach, but also helping young people and families bounce back from life’s challenges.”

The question had been, what does HeadStart Hull aim to achieve?

The citywide support service, led by Hull City Council but effectively a partnership involving every primary and secondary school in the city, as well as communities and the voluntary sector, was launched as a five-year programme in 2007, following a two-year pilot.

It received the welcome news last month it had secured lottery funding to continue until July 2022.

For programme manager Gail, the funding provides a platform to ensure the vital services HeadStart offers are sustainable, beyond then.

“Now we’ve had the chance to prove it works, it’s about funding the services in the long-term,” she says.

“Other areas across the region and the country are now looking at what Hull’s done and seeing how they can do similar.

“It isn’t just about numbers in and numbers out, it’s about measuring young people’s experiences.  

“It’s also about giving young people skills for life, including communication skills and where to go for help if they need it.

“There’s been a real cultural shift and that’s about everyone working together to play their part. It’s only been a success because everyone’s contributed.”

Gail has been involved from the start. With an established background in work to support young people in Hull, she was part of the team that set up the pilot and secured funding for the initial five years.

The issue, she says, was that for many young who would potentially struggle with mental health, the support came too late.

SUPPORT: HeadStart Hull provides a range of resources

“We’d identified that we had services in place for people with poor mental health but we didn’t really have a good approach to prevention and early intervention,” says Gail.

“With the pilot we worked with three secondaries and 10 primaries and then we wanted to roll out across the city, not just to schools but to communities as well. It was about having a positive, citywide approach.

“We did a lot of work with young people, parents, schools and other organisations to really understand where the gaps were and what was needed.

“We did a lot of work on staff training as well. There was a lot of nervousness among staff that they would say the wrong thing and make a situation worse. We had to improve their confidence.

“So, it was about improving the confidence of young people to talk about mental health and remove the stigma, and also improve the confidence of adults.

“We then put together really targeted intervention. There’s a range of programmes in there, from young people’s peer mentoring, youth work in schools and communities, counselling and emotional resilience coaches. We also provide support services for parents to achieve a whole family approach.

“Even through the five-year programme it was about continuing to test and learn and adapt to make sure we continued to meet needs.”

Gail, who recently received a Lord Mayor’s Civic Crown award for her dedicated work to support young people in Hull, is keen to stress it is not just about the number of people HeadStart helps, but rather how much it helps them.

Nevertheless, the numbers are significant. Since the launch of the programme, more than 4,220 young people and 1,525 parents and carers have been supported through the targeted early help on offer. Across the city, 41,580 children and young people have benefited from HeadStart’s school-based group work and timetabled lessons promoting positive mental health.

AWARD: Gail Teasdale recently received a Lord Mayor’s Civic Crown. Picture by Neil Holmes Photography

It is help that is needed more now than ever, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Earlier in the year, at the beginning of lockdown, the team had to quickly adapt by moving all its face-to-face-services online.

It set up pages on its website dedicated to advice and guidance, as well as trusted sources of news, to help young people and their families cope. It also published blogs from some of its team of young Headstarter volunteers, to let people know they weren’t alone in their concerns and anxieties.

Working closely with the young people they are here to help has been key, says Gail.

“Throughout all of this we’ve had a continued dialogue with young people and parents.

“We’ve done surveys to find out what’s really impacted on people and some of the young people have told us that actually they’ve coped better because the issues they’ve had have been school-related, and they haven’t been there.

“For other young people, things were worse. For example, we’ve spoken with LGBT children who are not out with their parents and it’s been hard for them to be themselves.

“We’ve adapted to meet need. We had to take services online, instead of being face-to-face. We’ve had to be innovative but all our services kept going.”

Thanks to the recent funding announcement, all HeadStart Hull’s services are thankfully guaranteed to keep going for at least a little longer yet.