Youth and school services

NSW School-Link

NSW School-Link is a collaboration between NSW Health and Education to facilitate access to wellbeing services and specialist programs to improve the mental health outcomes of children and young people.

This collaboration aims to enhance partnerships between child and adolescent mental health services and local schools within the Western Sydney Local Health District catchment.

This service provides consultancy to assist education staff in working with school aged children and young people who are presenting with mental health concerns.

NSW School-Link is available to education staff, health staff, government and non-government service providers working with primary or secondary school students who live or study in the district catchment area.

Youth community care

The Alternate Care Clinic (ACC) is a specialist mental health service for children and young people in Out of Home Care (OOHC) aged 0-18 years who are living in western Sydney.
ACC offers a comprehensive biopsychosocial assessments and a range of effective therapies for children and young people who are experiencing:

mental health difficulties
emotional and behavioural problems
relationship conflict

Our goal is to help children, young people, and their carers feel safer and function better at home, school, and in the community.
We work from an attachment, trauma informed model that highlights the importance of relationships and healing through relationships.

Getting on Track in Time (Got it!) Program

The Got It! Program is a school based early intervention and preventative program for children enrolled in NSW Government primary schools. Got It! is delivered by child mental health clinicians in partnership with the Department of Education.

This program is for children 5-8 years who are experiencing emotional and behavioural challenges at home or at school.

We work to strengthen children’s social, emotional development and social skills and reduce disruptive and challenging behaviours. Our aim is to strengthen parenting capacity and the ability of school staff to respond effectively to children with emerging behaviour challenges, and their families.

Engaging Assertively and Building Links to Empower (ENABLE)

ENABLE supports young people aged 12-18 years who have moderate to severe mental illness and who are at risk of hospital admission or emergency department (ED) presentation.
We offer assertive outreach intervention, risk management, and short term (up to 8 weeks) therapeutic intervention in the community.

ED Navigators are an essential part of the ENABLE Team. They see young people who present with mental illness to the EDs in Westmead, Blacktown and Mount Druitt hospitals. Navigators complete a comprehensive mental health assessment, discuss the assessment with the child psychiatrist, and then develop a plan which can be either based around a hospital admission or discharge back into the community.

ED Navigators also provide follow up intervention post presentation to emergency departments and link the young person back to their GP.