The Feltham Convening Project – Immanuel Rajiv, Reach Academy Feltham

What kind of resources do you think the community currently has vs what it needs to improve the social environment?

That’s a really good question. We very much view the connection between schools and the sharing of information and resources as the key part of this. They’re a really strong resource, not least because schools work very closely with pupils, but also with their families and they are key institutions within the local community. We’ve set up a young person’s action group – we want the inputs of young people because it’s trying to improve outcomes for them and so we want their say and we want them to be able to offer their feedback about what might work well and what might not. Parents and residents are very important resources. Equally, so are people in the local council and other decision-makers such as headteachers and the CEOs of multi-academy trusts. Some of our partners are in health, the NHS for example is a key resource. Local businesses, local universities. Another key resource is gathering as much information as possible around the current state of play. We know, for example, a lot of information is telling us that outcomes are worse for children and young people in the West of the borough, in comparison to those in the East. The more we can piece the different pieces of information together, the more we can take collective action. 

You’ve spoken about poverty and other factors that could affect a child’s education. Do you think that any specific issues such as social media could affect the mental health of young people?

I should have mentioned that we have two priority areas as well. We’ve convened a steering group made up of various people who are influential in the system. From those two steering groups, we’ve created two priority areas to improve post-16 outcomes for children and young people. The second priority area is to improve mental health outcomes for children and young people. I think social media certainly plays a role. I think the pandemic has played a role too. What we’ve been told is that young people not being able to go to school and have their normal routine has impacted their mental health and wellbeing. The closure of youth centers, green spaces and the reduction of activities for young people to do – lots of parents and young people have told us that they feel like there isn’t anywhere to go to spend time together doing something productive. 

Do you think it’s more the responsibility of the government to fund these mental health projects or do you think it’s the responsibility of the local community to come together? 

Fundamentally, the more funding the better. I do think there’s a lack of funding. I don’t know the ins and outs particularly but I think there’s a top-down element that is required. Equally, I think there is something very important about supporting the community to support each other too. Through the Reach children’s hub, and certainly through schools too, we’ve seen the benefits of peer-to-peer support networks and the power of helping each other. I think there’s a two-pronged attack, if you will, that we can do to combat mental health challenges. 

As well as that, do you think starting to introduce children to mental health issues as in how to deal with them could be better? Or should we continue with the secondary route or would primary be a good place? 

I think the earlier the better.  Perhaps even earlier than primary – working with parents who have very young children. There is often a link between parental and child mental health. We should be starting from the early years and then embedding it in primary and secondary because it’s almost too late by the time you get to secondary in some cases. It’s something that should be considered across the whole cradle to career pipeline, with different strategies tailored to different age groups. From what we’ve seen and heard, there’s a lack of preventative mental health and wellbeing. There’s no point waiting till it gets to crisis point – it’s much more effective to intervene early. 

Would you mind telling me about some of the projects the FCP is running?

There are three strands of action that the working group has come up with. The working group is composed of local professionals working in the NHS, working in CAMS, people from the council, teachers, as well as young people, parents, and residents. The first action they’ve come up with is to develop a peer-to-peer counselor support network across schools in Feltham. We’re very conscious about your point previously that this is tailored to secondary schools and there’s an early years working group being set up as part of the Feltham convening partnership and we very much want to tackle it. The second action that we’re taking is the app that you mentioned. It’s called COOTH. It’s free and it’s available to young people in secondary schools and it contains a wide range of support. You can chat with a counsellor. You can do lower-level activities such as mood boards and there’s information you can access to improve your understanding of mental health strategies that you could do at home. It’s being used by some schools already – Reach does promote it, as does Logic. We want to implement this in secondary schools across Feltham, making sure it’s implemented as effectively and rigorously as possible, and that it’s promoted as well as possible. The third action is mapping out the various provision resources for mental health and wellbeing support in Feltham, that young people and families can access. What we hear a lot is that people don’t know where to go for support and they don’t know what’s available. You can be given a long list of information in a directory form and it’s not particularly accessible. We’re working with the council and they developed a quite recent project called Hounslow connect, which is across the whole borough mapping out mental health and wellbeing resources for all ages, as well as resources for sport and leisure and education and the older population, etc. We’re working with the council on that to try and produce an up-to-date map for all the support available to young people in Feltham. 

What inspired you personally to get involved in this kind of work?

The inspiration came from the school. The leaders of Reach Academy believed that a really good school is necessary but not sufficient to improve outcomes for children and young people. It does do a brilliant, brilliant job. However, think we’re drawn to the work because we see a real opportunity to bring about change at a systemic level. It’s a very sustainable vision. It’s not that we want to direct all the work. We want to try and develop the people we’re working with to try and bring about change themselves. We often talk about a charity not wanting to exist because you want things to be working well. I think that vision of long-term sustainable change and impact on a greater number of people inspired me. 

Any closing remarks?

I think the key thing to reiterate is that we are trying to change the way that organisations work with each other. We want to try and forge greater connections between schools. We want there to be information sharing between schools and for there to be policies shared across schools. At the moment there are lots of different things going on that are all quite separate. We want to try and pull these together to work in a different way as we believe that will lead to improved outcomes for children and young people, which is fundamentally what the work is about. I don’t think it’s all doom and gloom. I think there’s a risk that with this type of conversation or this type of work, that there’s an assumption that everything’s terrible, and I don’t think that’s the case at all. I think there are loads and loads of resources and positive things that go on in Feltham.