Natalie Wilmot, Office Manager and Training Coordinator, reflects on what Black History month means to her and the black women who inspire her.

Please tell us about yourself and why you chose to work at MST? 

We congratulate Leicester City Council on ten years of MST practice! We were thrilled to be able to join them in their celebrations in November 2022. The service has grown from one team in 2012 to four teams including two MST CAN teams. We also recognised staff celebrating 10 years of service.

The first MST Family Integrated Transitions team (MST-FIT) in Wales! The team will deliver MST FIT across two local authorities, Wrexham Borough Council and Flintshire County Council, working in partnership with health partners from Betsi Cadwalladr University Health Board. The team will focus on returning children safely home to their families from care. We look forward to updating you all on their progress!

MST UK & Ireland welcomed the first team in France in September 2021. The service is being hosted in Montpellier by the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) (the University Hospital of Montpellier).

MST Supervisors Lloyd McDonald and Andrea Underhill with support from MST Expert Simone Fox were keen to highlight the excellent work that their teams are doing alongside a multitude of professional services in Sandwell. In 2019, a similar celebration event was organised to showcase the good practice and collaboration between the MST team, the wider stakeholders and the families. In Sandwell there is a standard MST team and a MST Team that is funded by the Youth Endowment Fund.

MST-UK & I in partnership with four Local Authorities and Children’s Trusts in England, have established four new teams through a successful bid to the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF). The YEF is a government fund focused on preventing children and young people aged 10-14 years becoming involved in violence and criminal exploitation. This project is also being supported through an external evaluation from Warwick University.

Before Covid 19 became a huge part of our lives I was working with my MST team in our local authorities’ offices alongside social work colleagues. Chats over the kettle regarding referrals or other queries were a normal part of my day. However, in March when a national lockdown was announced I took my laptop home and have not returned to office since. To start with technology was a significant barrier to completing work for instance we only had skype to use for video calls and virtual meetings.

As lockdown continues it is important to take time to look after yourself, your family, colleagues and friends. There are many resources available to help you -

Covid-19: Five ways to stay positive through lockdown

Coronavirus and your wellbeing

Dawn Roberts, Assistant Director of Early Help, Family Support and Youth Justice for Birmingham Children’s Trust recently retired in September 2020. During the past 10 years Dawn not only supported the development of the first MST team in Birmingham but she also supported the growth of a second team and more recently supported a successful bid to the Youth Endowment Fund to develop new teams in Birmingham, Sandwell, Kirklees and Nottingham working with young people aged 10-14 years at risk or involved in criminal exploitation.

The MST CAN team in Doncaster is the first MST team in Doncaster. Multisystemic Therapy for Child Abuse and Neglect (MST-CAN) is an adaptation of MST that was developed to treat families who have come to the attention of Children’s Services due to physical abuse and/or neglect and who have one or more children aged 6 to 17 years who are subject to a child protection plan.

On the 2^nd December 2020 an online information event was held to, celebrating 10 years of implementing MST in Scotland and to share information about MST with other Local Authorities and service providers. The event was organised by Mhairi Fleming, Multisystemic Therapy Expert and Head of Programme for Scotland who works for NES (NHS Education for Scotland), in partnership with Pei-I Yang, Programme Manager for Edinburgh MST and Vicky Cassells, Programme Manager for Fife MST .

Children and young people’s mental health has never been more important – schools are partially closed and the way that we are all living our lives couldn’t be more different to previous years.

The first MST team in Wales opened in May 2020.

MST teams are continuing to offer support during the Coronavirus outbreak. We appreciate that there is a lot of uncertainty which is causing worry and anxiety for many people. Some may have concerns about how to stay well and healthy, and not pass the virus onto vulnerable loved ones.

Government recommendations around social distancing, staying indoors, and schools closing will have an impact on us all. 

Good mental health and positive wellbeing can help you better cope with the disruption Coronavirus is creating in our lives.

The Bail Supervision Scheme, which was designed by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA) and is operated by Extern, was presented with the Community Corrections Awards 2019 at the International Corrections and Prisons Association (ICPA) Conference.

The ICPA award is a “Special recognition by the Association, its members and indeed the wider correctional community for efforts and initiatives within the correctional sphere.”

FAMILY THERAPY HELPS KEEP YOUNG PEOPLE OUT OF CARE IN ESSEX

A new report from the Rees Centre, University of Oxford, highlights the impact of Multi Systemic Therapy (MST) in helping to keep young people out of care in Essex. The evaluation looks at quantitative data collected by Essex County Council for 302 young people who received MST.

Today is International Youth Day and the theme for 2019 is “Transforming education”

An "explosion" in the number of older children going into care for reasons such as criminal or sexual exploitation is putting the system under pressure, the children's commissioner for England has warned.

Click here to read the full article

Kemi Badenoch, the MP for Saffron Walden, has succeeded Nadhim Zahawi as children’s minister. The appointment was made public on Saturday, 24 hours after Zahawi, who had been in post 18 months, was reshuffled to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) by new prime minister Boris Johnson.

When Zahawi arrived in January 2018, the minister for children and families role was downgraded from minister of state to junior minister level, and it will retain this status under Badenoch.