Toolkit Launch - Wednesday 6 June 2007
The HandsOnScotland Toolkit
The HandsOnScotland Toolkit has been developed by Playfield Institute, NHS Fife in partnership with Barnardo's and the University of Dundee, it is a resource for anybody working with children and young people. This website was commissioned by HeadsUpScotland, the National Project for children and young people’s mental health, in response to recommendations from the SNAP (Scottish Needs Assessment Programme) report on Child and Adolescent Mental Health (2003). The SNAP report found that many frontline workers from all agencies feel they lack the practical skills and confidence to help children and young people who have troubling behaviour. This website is designed to help support frontline workers to make a difference to children and young people's lives, by giving them the tools to respond helpfully when they are troubled.
These children or young people may be waiting to see a mental health specialist or they may have already received specialist assessment, but need ongoing support from frontline workers. Alternatively, they may not need to see a specialist, but they need someone to help them through a difficult time in their lives. If help is given early enough on when a problem appears, it may not become a serious issue. So this website was developed to provide the information and tools to help frontline workers to offer help and support to children and young people in such situations.
We hope that this website will give frontline workers the information, tools and confidence to help understand, think about and act to help the children and young people they see who have troubling behaviours. We have consulted with frontline workers throughout the development of the website to ensure that the content is relevant and useful. We believe that this website is an ongoing, dynamic process and we welcome your feedback so that we can continue to improve the site.
“If someone listens, or stretches out a hand, or whispers a kind word of encouragement, or attempts to understand a lonely person, extraordinary things begin to happen...” Loretta Girzartis