(CAMHS) and Schools - London Health Programmes

• Consider establishing secondments from one organisation to another.
• Allow time for building up an understanding of the different cultures of the
education and health sectors.
• Try to ensure that CAMHS staff spend time working from a school location
and or within LEA offices.
• For new relationships, a systematic and transparent approach to building
mutual respect and understanding should be adopted and the induction of new
staff should take this into account.
• Longer term contracts to educational support staff and CAMHS staff are more
likely to result in successful recruitment of staff to work in school support
teams.
Actions for Schools
• Ensure that within schools there are effective whole school approaches to
promoting children’s mental health, including good pastoral systems.
• Identify members of staff with responsibility for promoting children’s mental
health and provide protected time for this work to be undertaken.
• Appreciate that health staff may have different approaches to working with
children, especially in relation to information sharing, confidentiality and
discipline, and work out how these different approaches can work effectively
alongside each other without one undermining the other.
• Help health workers to understand the culture of the school and be willing to
adapt to their needs. Ensure that they are given opportunities to mix
informally with teachers.
• Make physical space in schools for individual and group work for mental
health staff which can be private and uninterrupted.
• Map together with CAMHS the services already available to schools and the
responsibilities and remit of these to ensure CAMHS staff are used
appropriately.
Action for CAMHS
• Consider basing Tier 2 CAMHS staff in small locality teams, in areas which
match Local Education Authority, or school pyramid areas.