Description
Children and young people are looked after at home and looked after away from home for varied reasons. Their legal situations are also varied.
In the context of care environment changes, possibly difficult family relationships or previous trauma; the experience of distress, emotional and behavioural variation is common.
Risks can be very changeable.
Difficult or complex behaviour is not always a sign of mental health disorder, but a timely mental health opinion can be crucial.
Edinburgh Connect
Edinburgh Connect is a specialist CAMHS team for Looked After & Accommodated Children & Young People in Edinburgh.
Services include: -Consultations to Foster Carers/ kinship carers & residential staff. Direct work with Children and young people who are in residential care. Referrals are accepted from social workers and kinship care workers. Occasionally other professionals actively working with the family may refer e.g. Health Visitors. Referral forms can be obtained by contacting the team – a phone call about the referral is required initially. (0131 536 0534). Kinship
carers can also receive support through Mentor and The Big Heart Foundation.
Referrers should first consult with CAMHS teams before referring. This helps match varied individual needs with a range of direct and indirect CAMHS options.
Urgent referrals for children and young people in this category will commonly be to identify if they present with a mental health disorder or an associated risk of serious harm to themselves or others.
Routine assessment may be warranted if there are persistent symptoms of psychological distress and/or a serious and persistent impairment of their day to day social functioning across time and setting.
CAMHS will usually liaise with the allocated Social Worker to ensure a co-ordinated approach, confirm who has parental responsibilities and consider support for attendance.
This guidance is in line with national policy drivers e.g. CAMHS national priorities, Getting it Right for Every Child and the local authorities Integrated Assessment Framework.
CAMHS offer consultation to foster parents to support them in partnership with the local authorities
(Edinburgh Connect – 0131 537 6364)
If concerns exist they will have been discussed in multi agency groups. Local authority and CAMHS aim to work together to provide a common, coordinated framework across all agencies that support the delivery of appropriate, proportionate and timely help to all children as they need it. This includes not subjecting children to multiple assessments or to repeat information that other agencies hold.
Therefore it is important that information is shared and accessed e.g. the Integrated Assessment Framework, or Staged Intervention process and Child Protection processes. Given these principles (GIRFEC) it is important that professionals who are concerned about children utilise their existing referral protocols into our Service rather than suggest to the family that they attend their GP.
We would need to know how the child is affected by their symptoms i.e. how is their day to day functioning affected.
