(CAMHS) and Schools - London Health Programmes

has been evaluated elsewhere as effective in groups and is currently being evaluated
in classroom settings. The programme covers how to behave in the classroom,
listening and paying attention, problem solving, anger management and making
friendships. The aim is that the whole class, and eventually the whole school, can
share a language where problem solving can occur. The course is run over six
months at two sessions per week for 45 minutes per class.
4.2.4 Evaluation and Outcomes
The principles behind assessing the effectiveness of the service delivery is to adopt a
comprehensive outcome model to take account of clinical outcomes but also
ecological, consumer and economic and needs related outcomes. Thus a number of
different approaches to evaluation are being taken. The direct client work of the
Community Child and Family Service (CCFS) which includes work in school setting,
is being evaluated to assess who is using the service, what kind of treatment they
received, outcomes in terms of the changes in severity of child mental health
problems and parental stress and to assess client’s expectations and assessments of the
service. This includes both parents and adolescents. Service evaluation packs made
up of standardised measures and questionnaires are used to collect information from
children, parents and teachers before, and four months after the intervention, and a
year after for a sub sample (Attride-Stirling et al, 2001). Unfortunately it is not
possible at this stage to disaggregate the figures for the children seen in school
settings. The overall service clinical outcomes (including work not in schools) were
very positive, showing clear improvements in child problems and parental coping
after the intervention and that the improvements were enduring over a year after the
intervention. Parents reported high satisfaction with the service, especially with the
location of their appointment (the majority within 30 minutes walk from home).
Interestingly, teachers reported less positive change in children’s behaviour than
clinicians or parents and adolescents themselves.
The support of the Tier 2 services to Tier 1 services and multi-agency approaches
were evaluated to identify whether the introduction of a Tier 2 service affected the
perceived quality of CAMHS in terms of service access, working relationships and
satisfaction (Day et al, in press) with Tier 1 workers (which include GPs, nurses,
health visitors, head teachers, deputy heads and SENCOs. The findings were that
there had been improvement in the knowledge, access and quality of working
relationships with CAMHS. This was stronger when there had been direct contact
with CAMHS Tier 2 staff, for example, when referrals had been made.
4.2.5 Feed back from interviewees on impact
The staff providing the service identified positive outcomes of both the Kaleidoscope
project and the ‘Dinosaur School’ in terms of the peer relationships, academic
attainment, behaviour and exclusion; one felt that she could really see a difference
even just over the eight months of her work. CAMHS staff identified that it was more
difficult to work in secondary schools (see discussion in section 5.4.5).
The primary school staff were very positive about the project. The difficulties
reflected working with secondary schools, outlined above, were reflected in the