Kooth, the online counselling and emotional well-being platform for children and young people aged 11 to 18 years has been available in Bolton, Manchester, Oldham, Trafford Rochdale and Wigan for some time. It’s now available in Bury, Salford, Tameside and Stockport. This expansion was brought forward in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Kooth provides:

• Live CHAT function for a CYP to converse with a qualified counsellor;
• Messaging function for children and young people to contact the service, these are monitored and managed by counsellors, emotional wellbeing practitioners and media workers;
• Static and live topic-focused forums; forums encourage the development of a peers supported community online;
• Online magazine containing a wealth of topic specific resources, from mental health specific topics to more general subjects; and
• Crisis information, and self-help resources

The target groups in Greater Manchester:

• Children and young people with emotional wellbeing and/or emerging mental health problems, many of whom will require a low level/targeted/short-term intervention
• Children and young people who are hard to reach and do not engage with services through traditional routes

To find out more visit https://hub.gmhsc.org.uk/mental-health/kooth/

To sign up to use Kooth, go to www.kooth.com

GM Health & Social Care Partnership: Mental Health Resources

GM Health and Social Care Partnership have developed a webpage providing resources to support mental health. There is a huge amount of helpful resources, including pages dedicated specifically to young people, children and families, and creative resources:

https://hub.gmhsc.org.uk/mental-health/covid-19-resources-for-young-people/

https://hub.gmhsc.org.uk/mental-health/children-young-people-and-families/

https://hub.gmhsc.org.uk/mental-health/creative-resources/