Monitoring
CAMHS Mapping
CAMHS mapping was developed for the Department of Health to contribute to the monitoring of the expansion and development of mental health service provision for children and adolescents. It was set up in 2002 and has become an annual exercise for the collection of data on specialist CAMH Tier 2 to 4 services (Health Advisory Service, 1995).
The CAMHS mapping aims to:
- support the development of the Children’s National Service Framework (CNSF) and help provide a focus on specialist CAMHS provision
- support the commissioning of CAMH services by providing a description of service provision
- assist in the bid for resources for CAMHS development
- support local service development
- provide comparative data on the progress in achieving service frameworks and delivery plan targets, for the range of inspectorial and supervisory bodies.
All the CAMHS services in City and Hackney take part in National CAMHS mapping
CAMHS Self Assessment
Hackney CAMHS uses the comprehensive CAMHS Self Assessment Matrix which enables local CAMHS partnerships to develop a continuous improvement cycle whereby they can assess themselves against their capability of delivering a comprehensive CAMHS. The Health and Social Care Advisory Service (HASCAS) has undertaken a national analysis, identifying underlying trends which yielded a 78% return rate. this analysis is now part of an annual review cycle. www.chimat.org.uk
CAMHS Reviews
A Government Joint Area Review of Childrens Services in Hackney in August 2006 reported
“Child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) are very good and include specialist clinic and extensive community outreach service.” “Interagency communication and engagement is good and partnership working to deliver accessible services in the community is innovative and effective. Examples include a therapeutic intervention service and a family liaison service working within social services to support hard-to-reach families. There is a well conceived parental mental health project working with adult psychiatric services and an early intervention project in schools for parents of children with behaviour problems. Access to specialist CAMHS is very good. All cases are seen well within the national target period. There is no waiting list for specialist CAMHS treatment and all deliberate self-harm cases are seen within 24 hours The responses of children and parents to questionnaires indicate a high level satisfaction with the service. Specialist CAMHS nurses provide advice and support to a range of services; these include the YOT, special schools, pupil referral units, the looked after children team and children with disabilities teams and the adolescent specialist addiction treatment service. It is too early to evaluate the impact of this new development, but professional feed back has been very positive and training events have been well attended.”
CAMHS Outcome Research Consortium (CORC)
The East London NHS Foundation Trust is working with CAMHS Outcome Research Consortium (CORC) to develop and pilot a routine model of outcome evaluation for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). National CORC is working with 55 CAMHS across the UK and this enables us to share results and use outcome information to inform and develop good practice. At present 3 CAMHS teams are involved in implementing outcome evaluation in City and Hackney. At each of our pilot sites, we have collected data from 3 viewpoints: the child, the parent and the practitioner.
- Before 1st Appointment: the child and their family complete the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) to capture child and parent views of change in difficulties. Their clinician completes the Children’s Global Assessment Scale (CGAS) to assess how the child is coping with school and family life.
- 6 Months & 12 Months after 1st appointment: the child and their family complete the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and their clinician completes the Child Global Assessment Scale again to capture any change. The child and their family also complete the Experience of Service Questionnaire (ESQ) to see how satisfied they are with our service.
- At Case Closure: the child and their family complete the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire and the Experience of Service Questionnaire and their clinician completes the Child Global Assessment Scale.