Co.Lab (Co.Lab Education Ltd)

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NHS Problem

Co.Lab addresses the escalating mental health crisis among children and young people, evident in a 50% increase over the last three years. Prioritising prevention through school-based psychoeducation, Co.Lab targets health inequalities with supported early intervention, potentially reducing demand for services like CAMHS. Collaborating with NHS Mental Health Support Teams (MHST) and aligning with Public Health England’s Whole School Approach, Co.Lab expands its focus beyond individual mental health to foundational aspects such as policies and environments. The dual-aspect dashboard fosters collaboration between education and healthcare (MHST), facilitating swift clinical expansion to support more schools and colleges in mobilising, tracking, and measuring WSA. 

Solution

Function 2 of the NHS MHST is to support the Mental Health Lead in each school or college to introduce or develop WSA. Eight principles underpin the WSA, guiding comprehensive transformation and emphasising areas from staff development to targeted mental health support and referrals. Schools and Colleges must first focus on Principle One, Leadership and Management, to drive systemic change. The Co.Lab platform guides Mental Health Leaders in Schools and Colleges through a WSA improvement journey, using the power of machine learning and AI to assess their school’s needs, suggest content and track and measure the IMPACT of the WSA whilst collecting data to inform Mental Health support across the NHS. 

Impact

Our inaugural users, NHS MHSTs and Senior Mental Health Leaders (SMHL) in Schools seek a seamless WSA journey for systemic change; they emphasise the crucial need for robust data in mobilising, tracking, measuring, and maintaining WSA.  

Our pilot sites consist of NELFT, ELFT and HWHT. We can roughly estimate the intended impact group for ELFT as this trust covers the City of London, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, and Bedfordshire. ELFT alone has the opportunity to impact up to 1,500,000 people with the successful implementation of the Co.lab platform through 630 primary schools, 120 secondary schools, and 20 colleges as our prevention work ripples through the community, impacting pupils, teachers, parents, and caregivers.

  1. North East London Foundation trust 
  2. East London Foundation Trust 
  3. Hertfordshire and Worcestershire Heath and Care Trust