Impact
SYPSMS is the only dedicated substance misuse service for children and young people in Surrey, providing one-to-one interventions, group work, workshops for service users/professionals, and training.
In 2023-2024, we received 100% service user satisfaction, with 93% of service users reporting that they felt more confident in their ability to make positive choices in their life because of their contact with SYPSMS. 74% of service users reported they felt their mental health had improved because of working with SYPSMS and 73% felt safer since engaging with SYPSMS.
When reviewing closing records, 89% of young people who left the service this year had reduced or refrained from using the substance they required support for.
SYPSMS understands the importance of engaging with young people within a timely manner to ensure that young people stay engaged. Therefore, within our service, we offer an appointment within five working days. 93% of our young people had received their first intervention less than three weeks from receipt of referral to Catch22.
Challenges
Locally and nationally, cannabis is still the main substance of choice for our young people. SYPSMS has also seen an increase in cannabis being normalised. This is not just with our young people, but also with other professionals.
We are now receiving referrals for young people with more entrenched cannabis use or using other risky substances, which wasn’t the case a few years ago. This is a challenge, as we could have targeted these young people and completed earlier interventions, preventing other substance use.
We have also seen an increase in referrals for Ketamine use, this has been seen nationally. The challenge In regard to Ketamine use is the physical effect it has on the bladder, and the fact that young people and professionals aren’t aware of these risks. SYPSMS has been highlighting the risks of Ketamine in colleges, schools and universities. To support this, we have created posters about Ketamine with QR codes linking to our website, and have been offering training to professionals to raise awareness.
Working in partnership
SYPSMS is an established and well-trusted service within the county.
We are proud of the links that have been built with stakeholders, partner agencies, and professionals. We strive to make these relationships as strong as possible as we recognise and appreciate the difference it can make to a young person’s life when we all work together.
SYPSMS provides three full-day training dates in substance misuse in young people to Surrey Children’s Services. We also offer a two-hour brief education session in substance misuse to all Surrey professionals. In 2023-2024, we trained 134 professionals within Surrey.
We have seen an increase in cannabis work packs since we’ve had a practitioner embedded within the youth justice team. This has allowed us to complete 27 cannabis work packs face-to-face. As a result of these cannabis work packs, we have seen a reduction in the re-offending rate from 11% in 2022-2023, to just 4% in 2023-2024.
We have two practitioners now linked to children’s mental health services. These posts aim to support young people to access SYPSMS. In 2023-2024, we have seen a 40% increase in referrals from these services.
Voice of the young person
Feedback is welcomed and encouraged from service users at all stages of their journey with SYPSMS.
SYPSMS have completed seven focus groups this year. Focus groups focus on gaining information around how we can improve our service, and understanding what young people may feel the barriers are to accessing the service. We use this information to improve our service and make sure all young people who need it can access it. We also use focus groups to review any materials we are going to use with young people, such as posters or leaflets. This is to make sure what we are producing is young-person friendly.
We also provide feedback forms for the young people to complete when they have finished working with the service.
Future plans
Digital offer
SYPSMS has recently launched a website targeting young people, which we are hoping will help break down some of the barriers to young people referring into the service, and increase self referrals.
We have plans to launch a live chat function, to complement the out-of-hours helpline we already have in place. By launching the live chat on the website, we hope to be able to target more young people who may not want to use the phone.
Young people’s voice
SYPSMS would like to increase the amount of service user feedback. Going forward, we aim to review the focus groups we are already completing within team meetings and make this part of our agenda each quarter. We will do this to make sure we are implementing the views of the young people into our service delivery.
We are also developing an additional sheet for young people to sign when they leave the service. This is to find out who the young people are who would consider being part of interview panels or events, and/or who would be happy to support us with feedback on new resources.
School Link Practitioners
Once the School Link Practitioner is embedded into the local secondary schools, this should link SYPSMS and Surrey Healthy Schools. This will support awareness building and the sharing of good practice between the two services, to aid Surrey’s whole system. It will also support in reducing the exclusion rates.
We hope to support school staff to increase their knowledge, skills and understanding in relation to wellbeing and drug use/misuse and benefit from greater awareness of a range of health-related services and support available across the county.
Awareness-raising
Within the next 12 months we would like to raise awareness with professionals regarding the normalisation of cannabis, and encourage and inform professionals on how to address this topic with their young people.
SYPSMS also needs to highlight the physical risks of Ketamine use. This will be done with week-long campaigns in universities, colleges, and schools, as well as offering all partner agencies Ketamine awareness training. In doing so, we hope to prevent and reduce the amount of young people experiencing the physical impact of Ketamine.
“We talked about all aspects of my life – not just my substance use, which was really helpful because my use was due to other things in my life. It’s a holistic approach!”
-Young person
