Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) is a set of specialist services (Child and Family Service; Inspire - children's learning disability team) for young people of all abilities to support with mental health, emotional and psychological difficulties.
We aim to achieve this by doing the following:
- offering support to young people directly through talking therapies
- working with parents and carers, and siblings
- working with members of the wider care system (for example: teachers, care staff)
- working alongside others (this means that we will teach or support others to put the help in place with the young person)
- offering services through local health centres, GP surgeries and schools when this is more appropriate or convenient.
Our aim is to support the young person and the family in understanding, managing and ultimately improving their own emotional wellbeing.
Clinical work is not time limited but will be reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that there is still benefit to the work, a clear focus and that all involved are still happy for the agreed work to be provided.
The Child and Family Service is a specialist service within CAMHS for chldren who present with severe and enduring (longer term) mental health difficulties. Examples of these would be depression, anxiety, severe self-harm, suicidal intent, hearing voices. Some of these youung people may also have some specific learning difficulties (for example, dyslexia) but will not have a learning disability.
Staff are specialist trained in the Child and Family Service and include psychologists, mental health nurses, social workers, child and adolescent pscyhiatrists, child psychotherapists, family and systemic psychotherapists, art pscyhotherapists.
Inspire supports children with a learning disability. This part of CAMHS employs specialist staff who have expertise in working with young people with a learning disability. Inspire can offer support with mental health related difficulties, as the Child and Family Service also does, but in addition it is able to support with the following issues where universal or previous input has been unsuccessful and where the issue is related to the young person’s learning disability:
- Physical health difficulties (for example, toileting,feeding)
- Social Skills Difficulties (for example, how to manage friendships and relationships)
- General communication difficulties (for example, developing use of picture symbols)
Inspire employs staff with specialist training and qualifications in working with children with SEN and Learning Disabilities.
Staff within the wider CAMHS service will also have experience and skill in being able to engage with children who have disability and special educational needs. This will have been provided for many staff as part of their professional training. These staff will also have easy access to supervision and support from Inspire as and when required.
How we communicate with service users and involve them in decision making/planning
Views of young people and families using the service are gathered through on-going clinical appointments by the caseworkers. Views are also gathered through the use of questionnaires at the beginning and end of any intervention. Service users are also involved in the recruitment of staff to the services and service users have been involved in the development of handbooks and leaflets about the services. We also have a CAMHS Particiaption Group of young people that meet monthly.
We provide information leaflets and service handbooks for families.
In addition to the above, Inspire provide information in accessible format for the young people with a learning disability.
For users whose first language is not English we can book interpreters to support on clinical visits, in meetings and we can also have letters and reports translated into non-English languages at family request.
Covid 19 adaptations- We currently are offering the majority of our appointments, assessments and treatments via telephone or video-phone and variations to thi occur in discussion with the clinicians.
Wolverhampton CAMHS Transformation Plan Refresh 2018-2020
The Wolverhampton CAMHS Local Transformation Plan (2015-2020) was developed by Wolverhampton Clinical Commissioning Group along with our partners in response to the publication of Future in Mind - promoting, protecting and improving our children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing (report of the government's Children and Young People’s Mental Health Taskforce in 2015).
This document has recently been refreshed. To view the new amended plan please click on the following link: Wolverhampton CAMHS Transformation Plan
How our service is monitored and reviewed
Our service is monitored internally within the organisation to ensure quality of the service that we delivered. This monitoring is in line with quality standards that the service is expected to work to.
Our trust is reviewed and monitored by two organisations called Monitor and Care Quality Commission (CQC). Both of these organisations undertake reviews and inspections of the services that Black Country Partnership NHS Foundation Trust provide.
Our service is also monitored externally by the West Midlands Quality Review Service. This is an independent review organisation that reviews services against quality standards.