Mental Health

We have access to lots of supports in school to help young people manage their mental health and wellbeing. Your first port of call should always be your young person’s Guidance Teacher. The Guidance Team can discuss your concerns with you and your young person and signpost various supports available. Many of these are contained in the ‘Supporting your Young Person’s Wellbeing’ section of our website (Portlethen Academy - Supporting your Young Person’s Wellbeing), but sometimes there may be a need for other, more targeted supports.  

Where appropriate, we can arrange for the following types of supports: 

• Pupil Wellbeing Worker: Heather works closely with lots of our young people, Jenny Law DHT, Pupil Support, and our Guidance Team. Heather supports with a wide range of wellbeing issues and you can ask about this by contacting your Young Person’s Guidance Teacher. 

• Pupil Support Worker (Attendance): Monika works with several pupils around supporting them to attend school when this has become tricky. There are several reasons why a young person may suddenly feel unable to attend school; we want to help with this and early intervention is often more effective than waiting until this has become problematic. You can ask your Young Person’s Guidance Teacher about this support. 

• School Counsellor: Anne is our school counsellor and she works with lots of our young people, supporting with a range of issues. Information about the service is here: Additional Support Needs (ASN) Aberdeenshire, Inclusion, Equity and Wellbeing. Pupils can self-refer or discuss with their Guidance Teacher and refer to the service via them and their House Team. 

• Time for Me: Melanie works with us one day a week, and supports young people when attending school becomes difficult due to a range of mental health issues. The SAMH “Time for Me” Programme is a life skills course for young people aged 11-18 who are experiencing low mood, low level anxiety and / or low levels of confidence. Consisting of 50 minute sessions with a trained practitioner over a period of 7-8 weeks this programme is being delivered in 12 Aberdeenshire Academies . If you think this is the type of support your young person may need, you can discuss this with their Guidance Teacher. 

• LIAM or BBA: we are very lucky to have Rosie from CAMHS with us on Thursdays and Fridays each week. She can work with young people on two early intervention programmes: LIAM NES - Early Intervention Framework - Let’s Introduce Anxiety Management (LIAM) and BBA CYP : Brief behavioural activation for adolescent depression | Turas | Learn. Information about both programmes can be found at these links. If you think your young person could benefit from this, please contact their Guidance Teacher to discuss. 

• School Nurse: Claire, our School Nurse, can also work with our young people on a range of mental health supports. If you want to discuss a possible referral to the school nurse for targeted support, please discuss with your young person’s Guidance Teacher in the first instance. 

There are of course criteria and thresholds for accessing this type of support, and where we cannot access it immediately, we will always work with families, through GIRFEC processes, to make sure we find an appropriate support for your young person. We sometimes run short-term groups with ASL staff, Pupil Wellbeing Worker, or with our partners in Community Learning and Development (CLD), where themes or concerns emerge across groups of pupils or year groups.