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1 – 10 of 365Ruth Edwards, Richard Williams, Nisha Dogra, Michelle O'Reilly and Panos Vostanis
Specialist CAMHS provide skilled assessment and interventions for children, young people and their families who have mental health disorders. The training needs of the staff who…
Abstract
Specialist CAMHS provide skilled assessment and interventions for children, young people and their families who have mental health disorders. The training needs of the staff who work in specialist CAMHS are not always clear or prioritised, due to the complexities and differing contexts in which specialist CAMHS are provided. The aim of this paper was to establish stakeholders' experiences of service complexities and challenges that affect training within specialist CAMHS. The project employed interviews to gain wide‐ranging consultation with key stakeholder groups. The sample consisted of 45 participants recruited from policy departments, professional bodies, higher education providers, commissioners, service managers, and practitioners. The participants identified a number of themes that limit training, and put forward solutions on how these could be facilitated in the future. Emerging themes related to leadership and the role of service managers, strategic management of training, commissioning, levels of staff training, resources, impact of training on service users, and availability of training programmes. The findings emphasise the need for the strategic workforce planning of training to meet service delivery goals. Policy, commissioning, workforce training strategies, service needs, and delivery of training should be integrated and closely linked.
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Rachel Jenkins, Howard Meltzer, Brian Jacobs and David McDaid
The European Union‐supported Child and Adolescent Mental Health in an Enlarged Europe (CAMHEE) project aimed to provide an overview of the challenges, current practice and…
Abstract
The European Union‐supported Child and Adolescent Mental Health in an Enlarged Europe (CAMHEE) project aimed to provide an overview of the challenges, current practice and guidelines for developing effective mental health promotion and mental illness prevention policy and practice across Europe. As part of this work, an analysis was undertaken of the situation in England, making use of a bespoke data collection instrument and protocol.Our analysis suggests that there has been significant effort and investment in research, needs assessment, policy, human resource and service developments in CAMHS over the last 20 years, leading to a more detailed understanding and availability of services. Much of the emphasis has been on assessment and management of difficulties, however in recent years attention has begun to focus on mental health promotion. National standards and programmes such as Every Child Matters (Department for Education and Skills, 2004) have acted as catalysts for a number of national initiatives.
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Chih Sin, Rob Francis and Chloe Cook
Despite laudable intentions and evidence of progress, significant barriers remain in relation to the access to and experiences of child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS…
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Despite laudable intentions and evidence of progress, significant barriers remain in relation to the access to and experiences of child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). This article draws on the findings of a literature review and reports a number of barriers and their impact on children and young people with learning disabilities. Children and young people with learning disabilities are at a disproportionate risk of experiencing mental health problems yet access and experience of CAMHS can be highly uneven. Families are often unclear about how to access mental health services and what services are available. Such information and knowledge‐related barriers are particularly significant for certain minority ethnic groups. Barriers related to the CAMHS workforce mix, skills and staff attitudes can also mean that skills required for working with people with both mental health conditions and learning disabilities can be lacking. At a macro level, systems‐related barriers include a lack of joint commissioning and planning, unclear care pathways, the lack of a single point of referral, difficult transition to adult mental health services and a lack of inappropriate services.
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Despina Rothi and Gerard Leavey
Mounting evidence of a crisis in mental health care for young people has underlined the need for early and better recognition of mental health difficulties in children. Recent…
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Mounting evidence of a crisis in mental health care for young people has underlined the need for early and better recognition of mental health difficulties in children. Recent policy suggests that schools and teachers must play a pivotal role in smoother pathways to care. This will necessitate enhanced working relationships between schools and child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). However, there is little understanding as to how teachers and mental health professionals currently relate to one another or what difficulties undermine ‘joined up’ care. In this study we examine current systems of collaboration between schools and child and adolescent mental health services, paying particular attention to relationships between schoolteachers and mental health professionals. Data was collected using semi‐structured, in‐depth interviews. Our findings indicate deep‐seated barriers to good collaboration. Moreover, teachers experience significant frustration through feeling excluded from the mental health care management of children despite being affected professionally by such decisions taken, the delays to intervention and poor communication between agencies. Interprofessional trust and mutual suspicion emerged from these interviews as an over‐arching factor. The implications arising from expectations for greater inter‐agency collaboration are discussed.
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Christina Lyons, Stephen Bradley and David Eaton
This paper provides initial findings from a pilot to introduce graduate mental health workers into primary care, child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) across three…
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This paper provides initial findings from a pilot to introduce graduate mental health workers into primary care, child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) across three localities in the north west of England in the UK. The progress of the pilot was monitored by gathering information from students, managers, supervisors and mentors regularly throughout the 12 month period, during which the pilot cohort were being formally trained. The potential of the new role of primary care graduate mental health workers to address problems of volume and access to services, particularly how the role might contribute to developing nonspecialist primary care services, is considered.
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Tim Morris, Yvonne Anderson and Barry Nixon
This paper focuses on the policy context that led to the development of the New Ways of Working in child and adolescent mental health services (NWW CAMHS) project and the future…
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This paper focuses on the policy context that led to the development of the New Ways of Working in child and adolescent mental health services (NWW CAMHS) project and the future direction of change that is its legacy. NWW CAMHS represents a merging of policy and practice across what is sometimes a divide between adult and child services. In some aspects, CAMHS had already adopted what became known as a NWW in adult mental health with multidisciplinary teams characterised by dispersed patterns of responsibility and leadership. In other areas, particularly the involvement of service users and carers, CAMHS has been less forward‐thinking. There continues to be a significant workforce challenge for children's services and a risk that innovation and development will not be fully inclusive of the full range of service users' needs. It is important that the lessons learned from the national workforce programme are kept while the usual boundaries to development across services are broken down.
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Workforce pressures are the key constraining factor in effective delivery of the CAMHS agenda (Kurtz et al, 2006). The continuing investment and expansion of Child and Adolescent…
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Workforce pressures are the key constraining factor in effective delivery of the CAMHS agenda (Kurtz et al, 2006). The continuing investment and expansion of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) has key implications for workforce planning, and improving outcomes for children and young people requires an adequately resourced, trained and motivated workforce. Every Child Matters: Change for children in health services and the National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity Services establishes for the first time, clear standards for promoting the health and well‐being of children and young people, and for providing high quality services that meet their needs. This paper explores the key workforce issues facing child and adolescent mental health services as identified by child and adolescent practitioners. A number of key themes are identified along with the associated challenges.
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Barry Nixon, Sue Hooton and Ann Jones
Targets set in 2005 by the Department of Health in the form of a public service agreement (PSA, 2003‐2006) standard require the development of comprehensive CAMHS, which provide…
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Targets set in 2005 by the Department of Health in the form of a public service agreement (PSA, 2003‐2006) standard require the development of comprehensive CAMHS, which provide services for children and young people with learning disabilities (LD). This standard presents particular challenges to the existing national CAMHS workforce.This paper reports on a specific project to undertake a northwest regional audit regarding capacity and capability of staff working in CAMHS to care for children and young people with learning disabilities.
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Nicole Hickey, Tami Kramer and M Garralda
The role of the primary mental health worker (PMHW) is relatively new within child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). Different organisational structures have emerged…
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The role of the primary mental health worker (PMHW) is relatively new within child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). Different organisational structures have emerged and it is important to study the advantages and disadvantages associated with different PMHW practice models. The current study uses a large, representative sample of PMHWs and operationalises practice models according to the PMHWs' self‐reported location and team alignment thus identifying three models (namely CAMHS outreach, primary care based, and dedicated PMHW team). Comparisons between the models are made in relation to organisation and management, inter‐agency links, and job satisfaction with the aim of exploring the strengths and weaknesses of each model. The results suggest that each model meets the aims of the role and there is greater similarity than dissimilarity between models. However, it also indicates that attention should be paid to improving the working environments and training and development opportunities for all PMHWs irrespective of model, but with particular consideration given to improving the support available to PMHWs working in primary care based models.
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The National Workforce Programme (DoH, 2004a), supported by the National Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service Workforce sub‐group, commissioned a project to look at New Ways…
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The National Workforce Programme (DoH, 2004a), supported by the National Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service Workforce sub‐group, commissioned a project to look at New Ways of Working (NWW) in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS). This article provides an overview of the NWW CAMHS project using two of the 10 early implementer sites as examples. General lessons from the project are explored.
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