More than 120 students from five secondary schools across Haringey came together at the Pleasance Theatre in March to discuss mental health and emotional wellbeing - an event co-ordinated by a range of local young persons organisations.
The discussions were inspired by play I AM BEAST, written by theatre company Sparkle and Dark, which explores themes of bereavement and loss.
In the UK young people attending child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) are required to move on, either through discharge or referral to an adult service, at age 17/18, a period of increased risk for onset of mental health problems and other complex psychosocial and physical changes. CAMHS transitions are often poorly managed with negative outcomes for young people. Better preparation may improve outcomes and experience. This study aimed to co-produce, with young people who had transitioned or were facing transition from CAMHS, a CAMHS Transition Preparation Programme (TPP), deliverable in routine NHS settings.
Our Trust, along with Surrey County Council and Guildford and Waverley CCG, has launched a new service that offers 10-18 year olds a place to talk about things they are struggling to deal with. The Haven, based at the Discovery Centre in Guildford, is open for a two year trial period to give children and young people a chance to meet other young people as well as get help with any difficulties they may have.
Sue Moore, Chief Operating Officer at Lancashire Care NHS foundation Trust said:
“We are absolutely delighted to be working with the Wildlife Trust to support vulnerable young people in Lancashire to participate in outdoor activities that can improve their mental health and physical wellbeing. Not only will the project enable young people to contribute towards their local environment but it will enable them to develop new skills, grow in self-confidence and connect with their local communities. On behalf of the whole organisation we’re really excited to see the project develop and look forward to it formally launching.”
The recent announcement by Theresa May of a review of child and adolescent services in England and Wales, and investment in mental health first aid training for schools, should be welcomed by everyone working in mental health. This announcement is made against a backdrop of inadequate funding of mental health services globally and declining funding of child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in the UK (a reduction of 5·4% between 2010 and 2015). However, what is the evidence that adolescent mental health services work?.... Please contact the library to request a copy of this article - http://bit.ly/1Xyazai
Evidence regarding the association between service contact and subsequent mental health in adolescents is scarce, and previous findings are mixed. We aimed to longitudinally assess the extent to which depressive symptoms in adolescents change after contact with mental health services. Please contact the library to request a copy of this article - http://bit.ly/1Xyazai
One year after the launch of the Mental Health Taskforce strategy, the County Durham Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) Crisis and Liaison Team continue to improve service on urgent care and recovery.
The original ‘experiment’ set to test out a mental health crisis care and liaison service for children and young people, and cut the expected response time from 18 hours to an average of around 90 minutes for all assessments. The team are now working a crisis and liaison model with an up to one hour response to liaison and up to a four hour response to community crisis assessments.
Open access. The Transitions of Care from Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services to Adult Mental Health Services (TRACK) study was a multistage, multicentre study of adolescents' transitions between child and adult mental health services undertaken in England. We conducted a secondary analysis of the TRACK study data to investigate healthcare provision for young people (n = 64) with ongoing mental health needs, who were not transferred from child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) to adult mental health services mental health services (AMHS).
The staff from Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, the community and mental health provider, have been advising teachers how to identify and help youngsters who are experiencing emotional difficulties.
Costing £150,000, which has been funded by Peterborough City Council, the Project For Schools Team is made up of three community psychiatric nurses who are available to all 70 primary schools in Peterborough.
This year has been busy for CWP’s CAMHS services. Ancora House, the new state of the art inpatient centre opened in September and World Mental Health Day marked the official launch of the Next Step goal based outcome resource. The 4D toolkit has also taken off, a therapy resource that helps young people vocalise and manage their feelings, and work continues to develop the existing involvement of young people with lived experience.
The award winning website for CAMHS, mymind.org.uk has now been live for five years and provides useful information for young people and their families using the service. You can now also like @CWPmymind on Instagram, as well as @mymindfeed on Twitter.
A New Models of Care pilot project in CAMHS has launched.
Funded by NHS England the project will be led by West London Mental Health NHS Trust (WLMHT) working in partnership with Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL). The pilot will trial new ways of managing the pathway to Tier 4 inpatient admissions for North West London’s children and young people.
Tthe team collected information from a variety of perspectives, including commissioners and service providers. They identified a wide range of issues and ideas around key elements of the system, such as liaison and diversion services, secure estate for children and young people and youth offending teams. They also looked at the help and support offered to children and young people who have been victims of sexual assaults, specifically at sexual assault referral centres.
Come and visit our first pop-up library at Severn Fields, Shrewsbury 19th July 11.00am-3.00pm. Join the library, borrow and return books, get help finding information and evidence, set up an Athens account, find out what the library can do for you and your team.
A new mental health awareness scenario has been added to the courses on offer at SkillZONE, Gloucestershire’s safety education centre.
This week is Children’s Mental Health Week, so 2gether NHS Foundation Trust and SkillZONE are pleased to be able to launch this module for young people across Gloucestershire, to raise awareness of positive mental health and wellbeing.
SkillZONE, in Tuffley Lane, Gloucester, is a state-of-the-art life-size village, which provides a fully interactive learning environment to teach people of all ages how to recognise dangerous situations and stay safe.
Kathryn Charlesworth, a social inclusion development worker with 2gether, has been involved in putting the new scenario together. She explained: “We’d been involved in incorporating mental health awareness into a similar project in Hereford and wanted to make it Trust-wide by including it at SkillZONE.
The Education Policy Institute (EPI) has published a new report, The performance of the NHS in England in transforming children’s mental health services.
Open access. Mental health and the failings of the mental health services are in the spotlight as never before. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the often dire situation with regard to child and adolescent mental health. At the same time, there is a renewed interest in the scope for prevention of mental illness and distress, and in population approaches to mental well-being. It may come as a surprise to some that others have given such serious consideration to strategic approaches to public mental health as long ago as the 1950s.