Child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS): providing services for children and young people with learning disabilities
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/17556228200800020 |
| Published date | 01 September 2008 |
| Date | 01 September 2008 |
| Pages | 39-52 |
| Author | Barry Nixon,Sue Hooton,Ann Jones |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
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Child and adolescent mental health services
(CAMHS): providing services for children
and young people with learning disabilities
Barry Nixon
National Workforce Lead CAMHS, Associate Director NIMHE National Workforce Programme
Sue Hooton
Assistant Director Governance and Clinical Effectiveness, Five Boroughs NHS Partnership Trust. Education Advisor
to Action for Sick Children Board of Trustees
Ann Jones
CAMHS/LD Regional Development Worker, North West CSIP
The Journal of Mental Health Training, Education and Practice Volume 3 Issue 3 September 2008 © Pavilion Journals (Brighton) Ltd
Abstract
Targets set in 2005 by the Department of Health in
the form of a public service agreement (PSA,
2003–2006) standard require the development of
comprehensive CAMHS, which provide services for
children and young people with learning disabilities
(LD). This standard presents particular challenges to
the existing national CAMHS workforce.
This paper reports on a specific project to
undertake a northwest regional audit regarding
capacity and capability of staff working in CAMHS
to care for children and young people with
learning disabilities.
Key words
Children and adolescent mental health services
(CAMHS); workforce; learning disabilities
Background
There is a clear clinical need for service improvement in
relation to children with learning disabilities who have
mental health problems (DoH, 2004). National data
(Barnes et al, 2005), which reflects the northwest regional
picture shows that,
•only 45% of CAMHS services are accessible to
children and young people with LD (2004 CAMHS
Mapping figures)
•children and adolescents with LD are receiving
mental health services in a variety of settings eg.
traditional CAMHS, community paediatric services,
child development centres, specialist LD services
and special needs educational services; the co-
ordination of care between these services is
variable nationally
•services are struggling to interpret and meet
comprehensive CAMHS targets regarding this client
group
•there is a larger prevalence of mental health
problems in the learning disabled client group
compared to those children without learning
disabilities – approximately three out of 10 children
with LD facing mental health problems compared
to one out of 10 without LD.
A number of obstacles to implementing a
comprehensive CAMHS for children with learning
disabilities have been identified in table 1.
Table 1: Perceived obstacles by CAMHS teams
Resources Insufficient staffing levels
Insufficient expertise
(CAMHS and LD services)
Fear of ‘opening the floodgates’
Inter-agency Lack of awareness of others’ work
working
Rigidity Language/diagnosis
Referral criteria
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