Healthcare Professionals to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Clinicians: Developing a Generic Profession
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13619322200300017 |
| Date | 01 June 2003 |
| Pages | 26-29 |
| Published date | 01 June 2003 |
| Author | John Duncan |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
Healthcare Professionals to
Child and Adolescent Mental
Health Clinicians: Developing
a Generic Profession
John Duncan
Lead Clinician &
Consultant Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist
Lanarkshire Primary Care NHS Trust
Case Study II
anarkshire Child and Adolescent
Mental Health Service (CAMHS) is a multi-
disciplinary community-based service in the central
belt of Scotland for the children, young people and
their families who live within the health board
boundaries, a total population of 560,000. The CAMH
service is delivered by four community-based teams
each serving a defined geographical district.
The current CAMH service has a staff
complement of 29.6 WTE and a budget of £1,370,000,
which represents 3.2% of the overall mental health
budget. Child and adolescent mental health clinicians
currently make up 15 WTE of the CAMHS staff
group. This article describes how the service has
continued to develop in spite of the significant
national shortages of specialist child mental health
professionals in all disciplines. It particularly focuses
on the emergence of this new generic professional
group whose professional backgrounds include
specialist nursing, occupational therapy and social
work.
The child and adolescent mental health clinician
structure offers:
■an integrated career pathway for CAMHS
professionals
■retention as clinicians with increasing seniority,
rather than a progression within a professional
discipline which can only offer managerial
positions
■a framework of uniform pay, terms and
Lconditions which values and rewards the
disparate professional training, qualifications and
experience of senior clinicians
■continuing professional development to
consolidate changing specialist roles in order to
meet more complex service demands.
In pioneering the development of the career structure
of the generic clinician in the CAMHS in Scotland,
our service has addressed a significant career
developmental bottleneck, broadened the recruitment
base, increased the service skill mix, and addressed
the issue of staff retention. In describing this
development and the associated challenges, I would
like to explore some of the broader developments in
CAMHS both at a national and a local level.
The composition and membership of the CAMHS
workforce appears to have been determined by
historical developments as much as by prevalent
therapeutic approaches and interventions. A Scottish
report on the staffing requirements of CAMHS
(Haldane, 1974) addressed this issue as follows:
‘The original team of psychiatrist, psychologist,
psychiatric social worker, is no longer the only team, nor
necessarily the best team for the present day functioning of
departments ... Membership of the team does not depend
on status but on the capacity to contribute to defined
tasks. The team must be a work group, a primarily task
orientated organisation whose members share a common
understanding of methods and aims. It must demonstrate
both in its own work and, in its working relationships
with other organisations, skills and expertise in
26 The Mental Health Review Volume 8 Issue 2 June 2003 ©Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) 2003
To continue reading
Request your trial