Sandwell Celebration Event

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. Both teams are embedded within the Sandwell Children’s Trust and have well established links with the other professional services that work with families.

Due to the covid restrictions the event was a hybrid event. The event was attended by families and professionals and was co-hosted by MST Supervisors Lloyd and Andrea and a single father who had previously completed MST treatment.  

There was a mixture of live and pre-recorded interviews on the day. The Director of Operations at Sandwell Children’s Trust, Steve Gauntly highlighted the importance of services working together “In Sandwell we are really proud of our services and are particularly proud of our MST services. Working together has such as positive impact on the work we do and the families we support. Quite often working with families who are at breaking point and building those trusting relationships and working with families strengths is key. You can see the real impact of that today. Just amazing.”

The MST Standard Team held interviews with Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), Social Care and Educational Psychology. The YEF Team MST had interviews with the Police and Horizons Exploitation Team (Criminal & Sexual Exploitation Team). All of these interviews highlighted the importance of effective communication when collaborating with other agencies and CAMHS said that “The communication between MST and CAMHS is key. There is an overlap between the mental health context, and the context of MST. In a gold standard service, you would want that collaboration”

A young person who had previously worked with MST reflected on their treatment and highlighted how well they are doing now and how working with MST had improved their relationship with their mother. They recalled that after a missing episode at 2am they realised that people weren’t going to give up in trying to get them home safely despite it being the middle of the night. The impact that MST and its collaborative partners has on young people was perfectly summed up by Steve Gauntly, Director of Operations “I often hear of multiple examples of young people being problematic, losing their way, on the edge of care. But following MST interventions and support from partners, turning their lives around and making a positive impact on society”.

The event received excellent feedback and attendees felt that it was beneficial to hear from professionals and families. The parent who co-hosted the event said “I would recommend MST 1000%”