Response to the SEN green paper - YoungMinds

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We asked the young people from our Very Important Kids (VIK) project about what a goodoutcome would be for them. They said:easy access to help and support and getting regular support when they need it;having a real choice of treatment and not just being given medication;having good quality information and advice about their condition, treatments, andways to help themselves;being able to access high quality mental health services regardless of where theylive;and being able to continue with their education, even if they can't actually get toschool.As well as the above indicators, we would suggest that the following indicators would beuseful to measure the mental health and emotional wellbeing of children and young people:The prevalence of children and young people’s mental health – we already have theCAMH survey. So we suggest that this survey is repeated to measure changes inprevalence over time.Subjective reports of children and young people’s wellbeing – there is work inprogress to develop a measure of wellbeing, but we are concerned that this will notadequately cover children and young people’s wellbeing. It has been shown thatchildren and young people in some respects have a different concept of wellbeing toadults. There are existing measures such as the Children’s Society/Uni of York’sGood Childhood Index - http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/what-wedo/research/initiatives/well-beingParental Mental health – especially maternal mental health. This is important asparental mental health is a risk factor for mental health problems in their children.Behavioural, social and emotional development at age three – this is important toestimate how well children are developing and pick-up on problems early on.Question 44: What are the ways in which the bureaucratic burdens on frontlineprofessionals, schools and services can be reduced?It is important that the SENCO is not overburdened and receives adequate administrationsupport. The role needs to be properly financed, resourced and equipped. Theseprofessionals need to be given adequate time to carry out the role. Adequate administrativesupport will help to remove some of burden from them.There needs to be a whole school approach towards providing adequate support for childrenand young people with SEN and disabilities, and teachers need to be encouraged and giventime and support to carry out these duties. This should help to ensure that these duties areseen as an essential element of the teacher or staff’s role and not as an additional burden.Question 45: In addition to community nursing, what are the other areaswhere greater collaboration between frontline professionals could have thegreatest positive impact on children and young people with SEN or who aredisabled and their families?
There needs to be support for the SEN departments in schools. There should be moreliaison between social workers and education.There needs to be better links between specialist services such as CAMHS and schools.This could involve primary mental health workers or other CAMHS professionals working inschools, but also linking back to the local CAMHS service. This needs to be a joined upapproach with all agencies understanding how their role fits into the bigger picture of supportfor a child or young person. This is important to ensure that children with SEN, especiallyBESD receive adequate support in school, but can also be referred on if their problems aremore severe or are getting worse.Local services such as CVS organisations or CAMHS can help schools to deliver PSHElessons on emotional health and wellbeing, which promote emotional literacy and life skillssuch as anger management, and problem solving. This is important for all children, but canbe particularly helpful for those with SEN or disabilities to help them become more resilientand emotionally healthy.It is also important that there are strong links between the school and parents. The goodwork that schools carry out needs to be continued by parents at home; and parents need toknow how well their child is being effectively supported at school.Question 46: What more do you think could be done to encourage andfacilitate local services working together to improve support for childrenwith SEN or who are disabled?We advocate partnership working, but agencies often struggle to make it a reality. Thereneeds to be incentives and duties to encourage partnership working. For instance, it is wellknown that some schools are not happy about the support they receive from CAMHS. Thereare a number of reasons why schools and CAMHS do not work well together. It could be thatCAMHS does not have the capacity to respond, or their service structure is too rigid andbased on historical provision rather than on actual need.Children spend much of their day in school and with teachers. So teachers are in a goodposition to identify changes in behaviours. We know that many children and young peopleturn to their teachers when they have problems. It is not realistic for teachers to betherapists, but we believe it’s vital that teachers have a basic understanding of childdevelopment and mental health, know where to signpost children and young people to, andknow who to contact if they need advice. Schools need to appreciate their role in supportingchildren and young people with BESD or mental health problems, and not leave it all forCAMHS. So schools need to work with CAMHS and other services and agencies to ensurethat local services are based on local needs, are designed or redesigned in accordance withusers’ views about services, in order to help support children and young people with mentalhealth problems or BESD.Question 53: What do you think are the areas where collaboration could havethe greatest positive impact on services for children, young people andfamilies?
Page 3 and 4: We suggest that the assessment and
Page 5: Question 37: How do you think joint

Response to the SEN green paper - YoungMinds

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