Who Can Make a Referral?
Due to increased demand and pressures on our service in the last 3 years and the end of NHS COVID- recovery funding to support this, we have agreed that we need to change how young people access our service to best manage their needs.
We have worked collaboratively with commissioners and partners to agree how to manage this change and from 13th November 2023 this means we will sadly be pausing some of our referral pathways.
As an essential provider, we are dedicated to supporting 11-25-year-olds who are experiencing poor mental health, especially those who are particularly vulnerable, marginalised and discriminated against and for many of whom 42nd Street is their preferred and trusted source of support. However, with waiting times at unacceptably high levels, we are not able to maintain the quality of support that all young people deserve, and measures must be taken to address this.
Therefore, we have made the difficult decision to limit new referrals into our core one-to-one service to self-referrals from young people and referrals from social-care colleagues only from 13th November 2023.
Please note that all of our separately funded services, including support for young people directly in schools and colleges, via our Integrated Community Response team, our groups, our creative programme at The Horsfall and services throughout Tameside will continue to operate as usual.
What might this mean for you?
Young people will continue to be able to refer themselves into all our core one-to-one services.
Young people already referred to our services from other routes before November 2023 will continue to receive support.
Professionals associated with our contracted schools, ICR project and Pathfinder project will continue to be able to access our services as normal.
From November 13th 2023, we will no longer accept new referrals from any professionals except for social care professionals and any parents/carers will need to support their children to self-refer.
What does this mean going forwards?
We anticipate that these arrangements will be in place for up to 6 months to allow the service to stabilise and to prioritise meeting the needs of the 1000+ young people currently waiting for support.
The charity, led by our Board of Trustees, are working closely with colleagues across Greater Manchester, especially our NHS and Local Authority commissioners, specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and Adult Mental Health Services (AMHS) to manage this difficult situation as best as possible, with a view to lifting these limitations as soon as we can.
In the meantime, if you have any questions, please direct them to Simone Spray (simonesprayoffice@42ndstreet.org.uk) and we will do our best to respond within 48 hours.
For more information
What happens after making a referral?
Our Welcome Team will review your referral to check that we have all of the information we need. We may call you, but we will only do this if we need to and if you have told us it is ok to do so.
One of our Welcome Team will then get in touch to arrange a good time for your initial assessment.
After you've had a chance to discuss your support needs, you will go onto a waiting list for the relevant service.
Whilst you wait, keep up to date with opportunities to get involved in our creative and group work programme – you can get involved in some of these straight away.
Sign up to our Twitter feeds for the latest information: @42ndStreetmcr | @TheHorsfall to keep in touch.
