(CAMHS) and Schools - London Health Programmes

A strong ethos that came through from the case studies was that of working with those
schools which are interested and committed to working in this way, and of it being an
‘opt-in’ service. However, these may not be the schools that are in most need of the
service; and there is an issue of how to roll out the service to other schools (or
whether to target particularly needy areas).
Although joint working is designed to improve co-ordination of services, this may not
always prevent duplication of work. Currently, there are a lot of resources going into
schools and there were some examples of schools being overwhelmed with other
agencies coming in. Ways of co-ordinating this need to be identified and potential
overlapping roles need to be explicitly clarified, for example the role of the EWOs,
Educational Psychologists, and learning mentors with the Primary Mental Health
Workers or specialist Social workers. Examples of good practice show that these can
be effectively negotiated with joint working.
Managers expressed concern that this way of working was more complicated and
more difficult; with complex lines of accountability. This made it a more time
consuming approach, especially for middle management, but also sometimes in
service delivery.
Most respondents identified that the increased accessibility of the service and earlier
identification of problems meant an increase in referrals. This presents an increased
demand on the service, and problems of resource constraints.
7.2 Recommendations
Recommendations for action have been drawn from the literature review, survey and
case study research. This includes recommendations from survey respondents and
case study interviewees for others wishing to develop effective joint working between
CAMHS and schools. These recommendations could be usefully explored by policy
makers and planners within key government departments – education and health- and
by those involved in local CAMHS and education provision.
National policy level
• To ensure that greater emphasis is given at national level, across Government
Departments, to the provision of preventive and early intervention mental
health services for children and their families within school based and other
community settings.
• Within this, to ensure that the Children’s National Service Framework, and
particularly the CAMHS component of this, contains clear targets for the
development of multi-agency early intervention supports for children and their
families within schools.
• To ensure that schools are given clear advice, guidance and support to promote
children’s mental health within school settings from both health and
educational psychology services.