Beam: service offer, helpful resources & access information

I am keen to ensure that as many people as possible know about the service being offered by Shropshire Telford & Wrekin Beam – I know many of you will already be aware of the Beam service offer, so I apologise for the duplicate information! However, I hope you find the content useful. J

Why I am contacting you now

For those of you who have not heard from us in this way before, I will quickly outline why we are contacting you now… I have been aware for some time that the information we send out does travel to schools all over, but there can be delays in the information being cascaded to each individual place. As such, we have been working hard to bring together a mailing list covering as much of education across Shropshire & Telford.

If you have received this email, it is because you have been added to our education mailing list. If you are aware of any colleagues who have not had this email and they wish to be added, please do let us know.

About Beam

Hopefully, you are already aware of the Beam drop-in service. Even if this is the case, please read on as this might give you a little bit more of an insight into what we offer.

Shropshire Telford & Wrekin Beam, operated by The Children’s Society in partnership with Bee U, has been running since September 2017. Beam is an emotional wellbeing drop-in for children and young people under 25. Our service offers young people the opportunity talk to trained practitioners who can give practical support, advice and suggestions as to how they can manage their thoughts and feelings.

We are a low-level, brief intervention emotional wellbeing service. As such, we do not diagnose, assess or automatically make referrals to other organisations.

Beam – before lockdown

Prior to lockdown, the Beam service operated up to 5 face to face drop-in sessions a week at venues in Shrewsbury, Telford and Ludlow. With no referral needed, our face to face drop-ins are an open-access service, so parents, carers and young people can just be signposted to us and attend the drop in session most convenient to them.

Once registered, a young person will be allocated to the next available practitioner who will take the time to listen to whatever it is that they are struggling with. We will offer support, and suggest strategies to help them with the issues that they face, whatever that may be. We use a variety of methods to engage the young people we see including games and creative activities. We will never pressurise a young person to speak to us: we work at their pace.

Beam – changes to service due to lockdown

We are determined to continue to offer support to young people across Shropshire and Telford, and are offering phone support while the lockdown continues.

This is open to young people who have visited Beam before, as well as any who would like to get some support who haven’t attended the face to face service.

We recognise that for some of the younger children, phone-based support may not be appropriate. The team are able to offer support and resources to parents and carers to help them to support their children.

Accessing phone-based support from Beam

Support should be requested by email to AskBeam

Young people aged 14+ can email and request support themselves.
Young people aged 13 and under will need a parent or carer to email on their behalf.

A follow-up email from us will ask for a few details about the young person, and ask them to follow the links to register and consent for the service if they have not been to Beam before.

Once this has been done, a member of the team will make contact and offer a time where one of the practitioners will call.

The call itself is completely led by the young person, and there will be no pressure to talk about anything unless the young person wants to.

Over to you!

If at all possible, we would be incredibly grateful if you could help us to spread the word about the service on offer. We have attached a flyer which gives basic details about the service – if you have space on a newsletter or your website please feel free to share.

For more information about Beam, as well as information about The Children’s Society can be found via https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/beam/

Please follow us on Twitter! @GemmaBeamTCS

Beam resource guides

We are also working on producing resources on a variety of topics.

Previous resources issued have been:

Ideas for coping with anxious thoughts;
Supporting anxiety in young people (guide for parents);
Directory of useful websites and apps for supporting children & young people’s emotional wellbeing.

Attached to this email are 2 resources which have been produced for parents/carers – you are welcome to share these as you feel appropriate. They are:

Transitions: During & beyond lockdown;
Talking to your child about Coronavirus.

**COMING SOON**