On-site mental health support is a hit with Northbrook students

[Photo shows youth mental health worker, Nicky (left), with peer support worker, Han (right), at a wellbeing event they ran at Northbrook College during Mental Health Awareness Week.]

Students at Northbrook’s West Durrington Campus are supported by the college’s wellbeing and safeguarding teams, but staff had seen an increasing need for mental health support among students since the pandemic.

West Sussex Mind was awarded £11,500 of funding from Worthing Borough Council as part of its Community Infrastructure Levy Neighbourhood Fund and used the funding to provide on-site support to students, specialist mental health training to staff and students and host a wellbeing event during Mental Health Awareness Week in May.

Students at Northbrook who needed extra help with their mental health were referred to our youth peer support worker, Han, who has been seeing students at the college fortnightly. The support has filled a gap in provision for students who need help with issues such as loneliness, online bullying, exam stress and relationship problems.

Han said: “We have seen great engagement from the students using the service, with all of them wanting to keep coming back to the sessions, giving positive feedback as well as useful suggestions on how we can improve.”

Building rapport and defining goals

Han uses her own lived experience of mental health issues to provide peer support to young people in a relaxed and empathetic way. “My role is to build rapport and provide a dedicated space for students to talk about the issues they are facing at home or in college. The aim is not to solve problems, but to use my lived experience to talk, listen and focus on achievable goals.”

Feedback from students has been extremely positive with “excellent” or "good" ratings for the support received. One student commented: “The most helpful thing about these sessions has been the fact that I can talk and be really listened to. I can talk about anything and say how I feel.”

Specialist mental health training

In addition, West Sussex Mind delivered Youth Mental Health First Aid courses to college staff to help them better understand young people’s mental health and give them tools and strategies that would be useful to their work. One delegate fed back: “I am a mental health adviser, so I feel I have a good grounding in this area. However, the trainer really brought it to life and clearly knew his subject well. It was a great course.”

The charity also ran mental health courses for students for the first time, focused on maintaining boundaries when supporting each other and developing emotional resilience and understanding the impact of social media. These courses were developed in response to feedback from the college, which had sometimes seen situations involving someone’s mental health escalating when other young people try to get involved. Some 33 students took advantage of these courses.

"Priceless" support for students

Sarah Wood, youth mental health manager at West Sussex Mind, said: “Peer support at Northbrook College proved to be a big success with high levels of engagement from young people, who came back week after week for their sessions. This project is a testament to close collaboration between West Sussex Mind and the college’s wellbeing team from day one to work out what their young people needed, ensure robust safeguarding and offer avenues for young people to come into our recovery services. It’s given us a great model for us to embed elsewhere across West Sussex.”

Laura Roberts, mental health adviser at Northbrook College, said: “There is a lot of disconnect among young people – many of them are lonely and isolated and this is a theme that we’ve seen become more prominent each year. To be able to sit down with someone at college, who is more their age, is boundaried and gently challenges them, has been truly priceless for our students.”