How are we listening and acting?

Children and young people have said that they don’t find it easy to find the right support with their mental health

We are still improving how we share information online and in person about the support on offer to young people.

• MindMate website is the best place to find out all the latest updated information on support available in the city. Find out more.
• There is a range of support that children and young people can access which require no waiting times, or short waits. We have developed a new Printed Z card ‘Under 19 and Struggling to Cope’ and have been actively promoting this.
• MindMate Leeds are regularly posting on social media to raise awareness of the support available in the Leeds area, and are reviewing how we do this, including working better with partners in the city.
• The MindMate Ambassador team and other support services are going into schools regularly to raise awareness about the different support available to young people across the city.

Young people say they want good online information to help them find support, and content that is relatable to them. For example, they would like to see more lived experience from neurodivergent children and young people, audio options for web content and more content around neurodiversity.

Making the MindMate website as accessible as possible is an ongoing project.

• In November 2024 a big review looked at ways to improve the MindMate website. We have now started to improve the site accessibility and overall user experience – for example, the most used pages on the site now have an embedded recorded audio feature for those who prefer to listen rather than read information.
• We are currently working alongside young people, parents and carers to update the MindMate Neurodiversity Information Hub to build in lived experience of different aspects of Neurodivergence. You will see these appearing on different pages within the hub as quotes which click through to blogs.

Young People told us that schools focussing on attendance targets makes some students feel worse, especially when the reasons they are absent (like anxiety or difficulties at home) are not being properly understood or considered.

We know that students who are struggling to attend school can experience different responses and get different levels of support from their school.

• The Compassionate Leeds Programme is helping schools learn how to better understand and respond to challenges—including missing school—by looking at them through a “trauma-informed” lens. This means they are trying to understand the root causes of a child’s difficulties. For example, a specialist psychologist is working with school staff, including special needs coordinators, how to use this compassionate approach in their daily work.

Young people and families told us they can’t get adequate support whilst waiting for Autism and ADHD assessments, and that schools insist on needing a formal diagnosis or EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plan) in order to meet their support needs.

Over the last few years the demand for neurodiversity assessments has increased significantly, and the availability to meet this demand has not kept up. We are aware of the impact this can have on families. To address this, we want children to get support based on needs (rather than needing a diagnosis) but this change will take time.

• The MindMate Neurodiversity Information Hub is designed to give useful information to those with or without a diagnosis, and the content on the hub is growing all the time.
• Schools should be able to access support without EHCPs but we know that families do not always experience this. We are working with people in education settings to try to address this.

Young people told us that they have difficulties trying to access medication for ADHD

• Leeds Community Healthcare (LCH) NHS Trust, the Integrated Care Board and Primary Care (e.g. GPs) are working together on this issue, and looking at increasing staff capacity.