Child and Adolescent Mental Health

The Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) strand in NIMHE aims to provide a framework to support all work in NIMHE that may help develop service in relation to the needs of children and young people.

This work is co-ordinated by the Children and Young People (CYP) Group in NIMHE which brings together CAMH Leads for each Development Centre (DC) together with allied stakeholders such as the National CAMHS Support Service, National Mental Health Partnership, YoungMinds and professional bodies.

The CYP group has identified 10 key work strands/priority areas for activity for 2004-5 (see below). It is not anticipated that all DCs will cover work in all these areas in all years, but the hope is that across NIMHE all areas will be covered and that DCs will look to have substantial activity in at least three to five of the priorities set .

It is anticipated that NIMHE will work closely in collaboration with other agencies in relation to these work streams. The CYP group will continue to try to facilitate this collaboration by bringing together groups such as the National CAMH Support Service (NCSS), DfES, College of Psychiatrists (CRU), FOCUS, YoungMinds and Health and Social Care Advisory Service (HASCAS). A project officer will be appointed to support the work of the National CAMHS Fellow and to facilitate the co-ordination and progress of these work streams nationally.

Area of activity prioritised by CYP group in NIMHE 2004-5

1. Local Strategic capacity building in relation to CAMHS
2. Service Improvement and Re-design in relation to CAMHS (see Surrey Oaklands Project and other camhs service re-design projects)
3. Provision for young people and in particular transitions between AMHS and CAMHS (see sample projects)
4. Workforce developments in relation to CAMHS
5. Prevention initiatives (including work with children with parents with MH issues)
6. Tier 4 (Inpatient and very specialist provision for young people) developments (see related strategy)
7. User developments in relation to CAMHS
8. Knowledge Management in relation to children and young people
9. Outcome Evaluation in CAMHS
10. Inclusion of children and young people in overarching work programmes eg BME, Social Inclusion

How to get involved

For more information please contact the CAMHS Fellow, Miranda Wolpert, E: [email protected], (Young Minds, 102-108 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1M 5SA, T: 020 7336 8445) or one of the Development Centre leads below.