Meet Simon

I’m Simon Humphries and I’m an education mental health practitioner (EMHP), working in the Burnley and Pendle Mental Health Support Team.

Can you tell us a bit about the service you work in?

I work for a mental health support team (MHST) within East Lancashire Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. Mental health support teams are a relatively recent creation within child and adolescent mental health services (the idea was first proposed by the government in December 2017). The vision was to strengthen children’s mental health provision by embedding practitioners within schools, offering earlier and more accessible support.

Today, our MHSTs provide support for children and young people in primary and secondary schools who are experiencing mild to moderate mental health difficulties. What makes this service different is our ability to intervene early, preventing difficulties from escalating to crisis point. This not only reduces pressure on higher-level CAMHS services but also ensures families receive timely support.

EMHP’s on the team provide interventions for young people, focusing on supporting worry, low mood and phobia, as well as support for parents supporting their child’s fears and anxieties and supporting their child’s positive behaviour. We also have cognitive behavioural therapists on the team supporting more complex mental health challenges, such as OCD and PTSD as well as systemic family practitioners who use therapy to work with multiple family members at once.

EMHP’s also provide whole-class mental health workshops which operate alongside the school's PHSE curriculum to extend our reach and impact across entire school communities and create and embed mental health awareness from a young age.

What does an average day look like for you?

No two days are ever the same, but much of my work takes place in schools, delivering a blend of interventions. These include one-to-one cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) based sessions with young people in schools, one-to-one sessions with parents either in school face-to-face or online, small group sessions with young people in school, and whole-class workshops. I currently work within the primary team, so I work with children from 8 years old and up and may travel to two or three different schools in the course of a day.

Some days, I will also complete initial assessments with young people and families via video call who have been referred to our service, and we speak with them to gain more information and see if they would be suitable to be supported by us.

My role is about helping children and families to recognise when anxiety, low mood or phobia becomes a problem, understand the impact it is having, and learn practical strategies to manage it. This generally involves experimenting with new behaviours and trying things in a different way. I often explain that these techniques are like going to the gym, the more you practice, the stronger you get.

In your experience, what impact can EMHPs have on delivering high-quality health care?

Educational mental health practitioners play a crucial role in bridging the gap between schools, families, and mental health services. By offering early intervention, we prevent difficulties from escalating, which benefits young people and families while also easing demand on specialist CAMHS services.

What I find most rewarding is seeing young people gain confidence, overcome their worries, low mood and phobias and sustain positive changes in their lives. Watching them reflect on their progress and feeling empowered to manage their emotions in the long term is incredibly motivating.