Gangs and County Lines
Free Parenting Classes
Early Education Entitlement
Forward Thinking Birmingham
Late January Newsletter
From Birmingham with Love
Hall Green Families Flyer – Jan 21
 

From Birmingham with Love

For any families going through difficulties because of Covid, Birmingham City Council has a number of support services available, from financial help to counselling support. Please see the leaflets attached – in English and in Urdu.

Urdu

English

You’ve been missed – webinars for parents

From Birmingham with Love

Youth Service – Birmingham City Council

Safeguarding Resource Hub

With children likely spending more time online, now is a good time to remind parents of the risks certain websites, apps and social media can pose, so that they are aware of the steps they can take to protect their child. We’ve created a safeguarding hub that allows your pupils’ parents to access interactive guidance on setting up parental controls on their child’s devices, as well as guidance on apps like TikTok, YouTube and Instagram and more.

https://parenthub.thekeysupport.com?uuid=6c331d6b-1b38-4b36-8d1a-ea8b5fbec5b9

Thank you,

The Key Support Services

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NSPCC helpline

While schools and social workers remain at the forefront of work to protect vulnerable children, including by supporting them to attend school, expanding the NSPCC helpline and raising its profile will mean more adults know where to go with concerns about the safety and wellbeing of any children. Some common signs that there may be something concerning happening in a child’s life include:

• aggressive or repeated shouting
• hearing hitting or things being broken
• children crying for long periods of time
• very young children left alone or are outdoors by themselves
• children looking dirty or not changing their clothes
• children being withdrawn or anxious.

Last year the NSPCC helpline, which has around 100 staff, received 73,000 contacts from people with concerns about a child’s welfare.

It can be reached 24 hours a day by email – help@nspcc.org.uk – or through its online reporting form. Its team of experts can also be called Monday to Friday 8am-10pm or 9am-6pm at the weekends on 0808 800 5000.

The NSPCC has also made new resources available at this link.

 

 

 

 

Mental Health Support

Click here for more information.

 

 

 

 

Educational Psychology

Educational psychologist telephone helpline for parents and carers

Do you as a parent or carer at home with your children during the school shut down, feel that you
need someone to talk to about how you can cope with this challenging time for families?
Birmingham Educational Psychology Service is providing a telephone helpline for any parent or carers of children, who live in Birmingham, who feel they would benefit from a consultation with a psychologist to support them with any concerns arising at this time, for them or their families.

Areas of concern you may wish to discuss could include:
• Anxiety around the current situation and its impact on your children and family.
• Supporting you to support your children’s emotional needs.
• Concerns about family relationships.
• Concerns about friendships, learning, daily structure and activities.
• How to best look after yourself so you can support your children.
The concerns can be related to school or family life.
You will be offered an initial telephone consultation of 30 minutes with a psychologist and a potential follow up session of another 30-minute consultation at a later date. These will be MondayFriday, within standard working hours.

If you would like to access this service please email: Stephanie.Bowen@birmingham.gov.uk with
the following information:
• Your name
• The telephone number you would like to be contacted on.
• The name of your child’s school.
• Times and dates you are not available for a consultation.
• Whether an interpreter is required for you to access this service.
We will aim to get back to you within 2 working days to confirm a time and date for your consultation. This service will, as far as possible, be confidential.

 

 

 

 

 

Pause Mental Health Telephone Service

Need someone to talk to? Struggling to cope with feelings? Pause is here for you, if you are under 25 and have a Birmingham GP.  We offer a non-judgemental listening ear, self-help strategies plus skills for managing difficult situations and feelings. We are open 10-6 seven days a week. Drop us an email on askbeam@childrenssociety.org.uk or call 0207 8414470 and we will arrange for one of our friendly team to call you back. For more info check out https://www.forwardthinkingbirmingham.org.uk/

[FinalTilesGallery id=’14’]

 

 

Kooth – Free, safe and anonymous online support for young people

We are really pleased to share with you important and fantastic news that Kooth.com has been commissioned by Birmingham Children’s Partnership.  The service went live on April 13th and the award winning and innovative online counselling and support service is now available to all young people aged 11-25 across Birmingham.

It is a safe, confidential and anonymous way for young people to access emotional wellbeing and early intervention mental health support.  Kooth is used across the country and is well rated by young people.
Kooth is linked into the wider mental health support from Forward Thinking Birmingham and offers:

• Online mental health counselling and chat services from midday to 10pm during the week, and 6pm to 10pm at weekends
• Peer to peer support through moderated discussion forums
• Self-care tools and resources to build resilience
• Early response to and identification of emotional wellbeing and mental health problems
• And there are no waiting lists, referrals or thresholds to access the service

Click here for information on how to get setup login to Kooth

For more information please refer video below that tells you more about the service (additional short films are also available via this link)

Click here for the video about Kooth

[FinalTilesGallery id=’13’]

Activities Brochure Kooth (Secondary School)

 

 

 

 

Staying well under lockdown

During times like this, we need to look after our mental health and wellbeing. You can’t always know what’s happening, but you can focus on looking after yourself. The following guide will give you some ideas and then it is up to you to decide what helps you. Click here to read the full guide.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Free school meal vouchers

Overview

Click here for our letter to parents/carers regarding Free School Meals

Since changing our method of voucher distribution, we feel confident that parents of children entitled to free school meals are now receiving vouchers regularly. These vouchers are sent via email and text message so please ensure you keep the school office updated in regards to changes to your contact details

Please contact the school if you need to discuss anything regarding free school meals.

eCheque and eVoucher – parent guide and questions

Please click here for more information.

Invitation for community grants to help children and families

Birmingham City Council has announced £0.8m emergency funding to help children and families. Community, voluntary and faith groups who are helping children, young people and families through the challenges of Covid-19 are invited to apply for grants of up to £10,000 to continue supporting families through this difficult period.

Birmingham has flourishing communities which have stepped up heroically to support vulnerable people.  This announcement extends our community grant scheme for older people to reflect the needs of our city, and responds quickly to the Covid-19 emergency.

All voluntary, community and faith groups are invited to bid for funding to support their activities, through a simple and accelerated process designed to get the money out the door to where it will make the most difference.  Go to www.birmingham.gov.uk/Covid19CYPF for more details.  

All support should be designed to put prevention and early help first, for example:

• A local community group for parents of children with autism wants to provide online activity packs for the children but needs new software.  A grant of £300 would help to support the children and parents.
• A local mosque that previously ran family support sessions, with stay and play, and lots of activities for children wants to ring all the parents that are on their database, three times a week.  A grant of £2,500 will enable the mosque to pay a professionally trained worker to support families.
• A local charity runs services for families in the city, particularly more vulnerable families and young people.  The £10,000 grant will enable them to expand over their domestic abuse support programme over the next four months.

This is part of the Birmingham Children’s Partnership response to Covid-19 for our families.  Birmingham Children’s Partnership includes Birmingham City Council, Birmingham Children’s Trust, Birmingham and Solihull Clinical Commissioning Group, Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust and West Midlands Police.

Free school meals: New applications

As there has been a rapid recent increase in the number of Universal Credit applications due to measures in place to combat the spread of COVID-19, we are reminding parents/carers who think they may now be eligible to complete an application form and return to the school as soon as possible.

The form is attached and can be emailed to enquiry@hallgreen.bham.sch.uk or posted to the school’s address.

We are able to check eligibility very quickly, and if you are eligible we can begin to process your application immediately. Please be aware that if eligible, the processing period is taking slightly longer during this period.

Anybody currently receiving free school meals will continue to do so, there is no need for you to reapply or complete any forms.

For further information regarding eligibility, please click on the following link.

https://www.gov.uk/apply-free-school-meals

Hall Green Free School Meals Application form

Behaviour Policy Addendum

Behaviour Management Flowchart