Your questions and what things mean

We provide friendly and approachable NHS services for children, young people and adults in Gateshead, South Tyneside and Sunderland. We support people who are experiencing challenges like depression, stress, anxiety or phobias. We work with partner and NHS organisations to look after your mental health care. This can include referral to other services if it is needed.

If you are a child or young person attending a school/college in South Tyneside you can access the Healthy Minds Team. All schools within South Tyneside can access our service and refer children and young people to us.

Our children's, young people's and adult services are free-to-access NHS services. We don’t charge for consultations, therapy or workshops. All our services are free. 

If you would like to access the Healthy Minds Team, you can speak to your school and ask for a Request for Support, which they can send to us directly.

We will try to be as flexible as we can, but our appointment times are usually between 9am-5pm. During your appointment your allocated therapist can discuss treatment times with you.

If you need to cancel an appointment, let us know as soon as you can. Please contact us with at least two days notice before your appointment by calling 0191 283 2936. This means that we can offer it to someone else. Due to the high demand for our services, we ask that all patients respect our strict cancellations policy to make sure appointment slots are available for those in need.

If you book an appointment and don’t attend, or do not bring your child/young person without giving us notice, you will be sent a letter asking you to get back in touch within 7 days.  If you do not respond, the child/young person will be discharged.  If you miss 2 appointments in a row without contacting us, the child/young person will be discharged.

You can bring a family member with you to your appointment.  You can also choose to be seen without a parent/carer if you prefer. Please discuss this with your therapist at your appointment.

A process where an individual meets with a trained professional to talk about issues and problems they are facing in their lives.

An intervention to help empower children and young people to recognise their own thoughts, feeling and behaviours, improve emotional regulation and manage their own emotions.

A group intervention to build resilience and positive mental health, while reducing fears and worries.  

Guided Self Help Parenting. This programme offers support to parents and carers to help empower them to manage challenging behaviours, whilst maintaining and enhancing positive relationships.

Low Intensity Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is a therapy to help you manage your difficulties by understanding your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. This therapy is used to help with a range of difficulties such as low mood, anxiety, phobias, and self-esteem.

An online treatment for child anxiety suitable for parents and carers of children aged 5-12.

Goals in therapy are about what the individual attending therapy wants to achieve. Goals should be discussed and agreed. Goal-Based Outcomes (GBO’s) are scales, usually 0-10 that helps you and the mental health professional know where you are currently at and to help see any improvements made throughout therapy.

 

Parent-Led Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. PLCBT aims to empower parents and carers and teach them strategies to use with their child to help them overcome difficulties with anxiety.

A programme which aims to increase self-awareness, self-confidence and self-esteem for those children and young people who have an autism diagnosis, or those who have social communication needs.

An approach used with schools to offer whole class or whole year group support to build resilience, mental health awareness and self-help skills through a variety of workshops.

An assessment is a collaborative process to understand the difficulties someone may be experiencing.

A care plan or treatment plan is a plan of actions that identifies your needs and strengths as an individual. This plan can help both you and your mental health professional identify what things may be difficult for you, so you can plan goals and treatments together that maybe helpful.

Means that any information you provide to mental health services must be kept private unless you consent to it being shared with other people. If there are concerns about your safety or the safety of someone else, confidentiality may be broken. Staff at will always try to tell you if they need to share your information with anyone else.

Saying ‘yes’ to something that affects you. You may also hear ‘informed consent’ which means that you are fully informed and understand what you are saying yes to. If you are unable to consent because of your age or you do not fully understand, we may ask your family/carers to consent on your behalf.

Early intervention is when a mental health condition is identified and treated at an early stage, which can reduce the long-term impact of the condition.

This means when a certain treatment or approach (such as therapy) has been tested or studied and found to work well for certain conditions/difficulties.

Sign-posting is when you are given information regarding a service or services which may be helpful for you.

An assessment to identify and highlight if there are any risks that may impact you or others, which is regularly updated through your time within treatment.

The process of helping you feel better or mentally well after a period of illness or experienced difficulties. However, in mental health recovery means different things to different people, and recovery is personal. What’s important is building a life that is meaningful to you as an individual.