5.6.8 Protocol for the Working Relationship between Safeguarding and Family Support and the LAC Wellbeing Team |
SCOPE OF THIS CHAPTER
This is a new chapter. It should be read in its entirety.
NB This team is to be renamed via a CICC consultation process but will avoid any reference to CAMHS so as to best ensure and encourage young person access.
Contents
- Introduction
- Line Management
- Referral Criteria
- Referral Process
- Consultation Sessions
- Training
- Recording
- Review
1. Introduction
| 1.1 | The LAC Well-Being Team (LWT) will consist of 1 x Psychologist (AH) and 2 x CAMHS social workers (DK and KS). |
| 1.2 | DK will work 2 days per week out of the LAC Team and 2 days per week out of the PCT (Valley Court) KS will work 2 days per week out of the LAC Team and 3 days per week out of the PCT (alternating between I day per week out of Mulberry House and 2 days a week out of Beech House with this provision being reversed every second week). |
| 1.3 | To ensure a consistent provision within the LAC Teams DK will work Thursday and Friday out of the LAC Team, KS will work Wednesday and Thursdays and AH will work every day out of the LAC Team except Wednesday when she will be based at Beech House. |
| 1.4 | Given the inappropriateness of Calder Vale as a site for undertaking direct work with young people and the ethos of taking CAMHS work out of hospital settings a more appropriate environment needs to be identified for direct work to take place. This environment needs to have some facility for equipment and therapeutic work to be securely stored. |
2. Line Management
| 2.1 | The Psychologist post (AH) will receive direct line management and clinical supervision via the CAMHS Service (CB). This line management relationship will address all significant management responsibilities including annual leave, sickness management, training, appraisals and Personal Development Plans etc. in accordance with the PCT guidelines. However, she will also receive management support and oversight from an S&FS line manager (LAC) for the purpose of establishing and maintaining effective communication between the commissioned LWT worker and the child's LAC social worker. |
| 2.2 | The two LWT social workers will receive all of their line management oversight via the S&FS LAC Team Manager including training, sickness management, appraisals and PDP etc. However, they will also receive Clinical Supervision via the PCT. |
3. Referral Criteria
| 3.1 | The LWT is primarily devoted to providing a service for children and young people looked after by Wakefield Family Services and placed within the Wakefield area. This will include those young people who are placed in Independent providers (IFAs) where those placements are within the Wakefield MDC boundaries. |
| 3.2 | However, those young people placed in IFA placements within Wakefield by other local authorities should access appropriate psychological support via mainstream CAMHS provision. Where young people are looked after by Wakefield but are placed outside of the MDC boundaries it would not be cost effective or the most efficient use of these resources for the LWT to provide a long-term intervention. Whilst the LWT will be available to provide a consultation session for carers and social workers or to undertake a specific assessment any longer-term interventions should be provided by the CAMHS Service local to the placement. The LWT may assist in the liaison with the local CAMHS provision to ensure that a timely intervention is provided. |
| 3.3 | The LWT will provide a service for young people up to the age of 19 but from the age of 18 the focus of the work will be to facilitate a transition to Adults Services . The prime aim of the intervention with 18 year olds will be to assist the transition process to Adults Services. |
| 3.4 | Existing looked after children who are receiving a service from CAMHS should continue to receive this input rather than being transferred to the LWT |
| 3.5 | The LWT will provide outreach interventions for children and young people looked after by Wakefield who are experiencing any mental health issue in the broadest sense. Such mental health issues can include :-
|
| 3.6 | This list is not exhaustive and if a social worker or carer has any doubts about the eligibility of the young person's issue they should arrange to attend a Consultation Session with the LWT to discuss the issue in more detail. This will lead to either an acceptance from the LWT to allocate the case or to a signposting towards a more appropriate resource. |
| 3.7 | The LWT will not provide a assessment/diagnosis service for young people who are suspected as having ADHD. Any young person who is deemed to be in need of such an assessment should rather be referred to the Community Paediatricians. They will however provide a therapeutic service for young people who are diagnosed as having ADHD |
| 3.8 | The review of out of district placements including the challenge and oversight of therapeutic interventions is to remain with the CAMHS Service via the Complex Care Panel process. |
4. Referral Process
| 4.1 | It is appropriate for any professional involved with a young person to refer that young person to the LWT but before doing so there should be a discussion with the young person's allocated social worker who should also be cc'd into the referral so that they are best placed to track the referral and, if necessary, to challenge any non-intervention. The Referring Agency should complete the referral form and send it to the LAC Admin Team or e mail to SC_LAC. The Admin Team will then ensure a hard copy is placed in the LWT referral tray within the LAC Service at Calder Vale. |
| 4.2 | The referral forms will be discussed at a fortnightly meeting attended by the LWT psychologist and social workers. This meeting will also be attended by a LAC manager on a rota basis when it will be decided if the referral meets the criteria as set out above. |
| 4.3 | In cases where the presenting issue is deemed to be an urgent one then the LWT may refer to mainstream CAMHS on a priority basis for a more prompt allocation. |
| 4.4 | Once the issue has been accepted as being appropriate for LWT input then a Consultation Session will be arranged with the referrer, social worker, carer and any other relevant professional (eg supervising social worker) to agree how best the referral will be actioned. |
| 4.5 | The options available from these Consultation Sessions will be to refer to:
|
5. Consultation Sessions
| 5.1 | The LWT social workers and psychologist will offer 2-3 consultation sessions each week for professional and carers to discuss the needs of any looked after young person. As a result there will be 6-9 sessions available in total each lasting up to 30 minutes. More complex cases may be offered longer sessions although this will obviously reduce the number of available sessions. These sessions need to be inputted onto RAISE by the allocated social worker including details regarding attendees and the agreed actions arising from the session. |
| 5.2 | If the Consultation Session concludes that ongoing input from the LWT is the most appropriate means of meeting the young person's needs than the case will be allocated to either a social worker or the psychologist dependent upon the individual workers caseload and on their specific areas of expertise. The LWT will offer six therapeutic sessions in the first instance and a maximum of 12 further sessions as an optional extra if the needs of the young person warrant it. There will be minimal scope for additional sessions being offered as if no change has been achieved after 18 sessions then there is little chance of any change being achieved no matter how many sessions are offered. Thus at this stage other forms of intervention will have to be identified to better meet those needs. |
6. Training
| 6.1 | The LWT will also offer training to any professional directly involved in working with LAC including social workers, foster carers, residential social workers, LAC Nurses, fostering and adoption social workers, the REACH Team etc in order to ensure a wider spread of skills across teams in dealing with mental health issues. Some of this training may be quite basic including the identification of a mental health problem, to increase the awareness within teams as to what is an appropriate referral to the LWT and to increase creative ways of working with young people. Further training gaps need to be identified and addressed on a commissioned basis from the LWT. |
7. Recording
| 7.1 | When the psychologist is the practitioner the detailed session notes will be placed only on the PCT electronic case files (System 1). The details inputted onto RAISE will only record that a session has taken place but this will only record minimal detail regarding the content of these sessions. However, any referral forms, assessments or discharge reports will also be scanned onto both System 1 and RAISE. |
| 7.2 | If any details are required of the content of the therapeutic sessions eg for Court purposes then they will have to be applied for in accordance with the PCT Information Sharing Protocol. |
| 7.3 | Any information of a safeguarding nature will be shared with the young person's social worker in accordance with the Caldecott Guidance. |
| 7.4 | Where the CAMHS social workers are the practitioner for a LAC case on a day where they are working out of the LAC Team they will record sessions in RAISE with the appropriate degree of detail. On other days and when they are working out of the PCT they will record sessions on System 1. |
| 7.5 | It will remain the responsibility of the young person's social worker to record on RAISE the content of any Consultation Session. |
8. Review
This Protocol will be formally reviewed in February 2011 and again in August 2011
End