CAMHS Survey, SEND Reforms Implementation & comedy 18th May 2015
Dear All A couple of key headlines this time… Please feel free to circulate this to your own groups and networks. What are your experiences of Children’s & Adolescents Mental Heatlh Services (CAMHS)? Would you like your experiences to inform the future CAMHS strategy and help to shape CAMHS services locally? Healthwatch Richmond is inviting schools, and families of children & young people that use (or have used) the Children’s &Adolescents Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in Richmond to share their opinions and experiences of the services they receive. The surveys aim to capture a snapshot in time and so will run from 18th May 2015 and close on 19th June 2015. The surveys explore both Tier 2 and Tier 3 services (definitions below) and are being sent to parents via various support groups and the SENCo’s / Inclusion managers in schools. The parent’s survey: http://goo.gl/forms/8e8lBe0HLR The school’s survey is being distributed via the Headteachers and, again, the SENCo’s / Inclusion managers. The school’s survey:
http://goo.gl/forms/jaSZHlt0Fj
If you would like a .pdf version, please reply to this e-mail (although it’s much easier to collate the responses if they are sent on-line) Healthwatch Richmond is facilitating the parent survey on behalf of Richmond SEND Family Voice (RSFV), ADHD Richmond and Richmond NAS. Particular thanks go to ADHD Richmond who shared their development work on a CAMHS survey, and hence made shaping the parent survey much easier! Definitions… CAMHS Tier 2 This is known in Achieving for Children as the Emotional Health Service. The service is accessed through the Single Point of Access (SPA) and is provided across the community of both Kingston & Richmond. Professionals in the service include Clinical Psychologists and Family Therapists. A wide range of support and interventions are provided, including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Systemic Family Therapy. Sessions take place in school, the family home and buildings in the community. CAMHS Tier 3 This service consists of specialist multi-disciplinary teams such as the CAMHS teams that include psychiatrists. Children and young people may be presenting development problems such as autism, hyperactivity, depression, eating disorders and even early onset psychosis.
This service is provided by South West London & St.George’s Mental Health Trust and may be located in a local clinic or hospital such as Richmond Royal or Springfields. Single Point of Access (SPA) Achieving for Children’s Single Point of Acess (SPA) allows professionals and/or families to refer a child, young person or parent/carer that needs support in some way by contact the SPA team. Referral is made by telephone on 020 8891 7969 or via the Kingston or Richmond Council websites. (this webpage is currently being re-vamped to make it a little friendlier) Implementing the SEND Reforms With thanks to Penny for making these notes from Achieving for Children’s Joint SEND Implementation meeting on 14th May Local Offer www.afclocaloffer.org Karen Lowry (the content manager for the Local Offer at AfC) presented the newly launched Local Offer website. Currently around 20% of the total available information has been loaded and in the next 2-3 weeks much more content will be available. The team is working towards making the local offer personal through a log-on facility that will enable users to filter the content to see only what is relevant to them. There is already a powerful search facility and there was a discussion around how to make the content easier to search in different ways (e.g. by diagnosis or by issue). AfC will also work on a policy which defines what information will be available on the Local Offer. K Lowry showed the calendar function – which displays upcoming events (anyone can request that an event be displayed there) and also the news section – which is a blog – which again can take content from anyone who would like information to be available on the Local Offer. To make information available in News or Calendar, please contact Karen Lowry (karen.lowry@achievingforchildren.org.uk). Young Champions In last week’s bulletin, we highlighted the Young Champions plans for making a series of videos over the half term holiday that will be available through the Young People’s Zone on the Local Offer website. You can view this bulletin here: www.richmondsendfamilyvoice.org/news Outcomes Tom Brook (Deputy Head at Richard Challoner school in Kingston) has led work to create guidelines for professionals and families on how to write effective outcomes. A draft was presented to the meeting. Julia James (Head of Bedelsford school) had done a lot of work on model outcomes – particularly for children with more complex needs. These are intended to act as a starting point for parents / professionals drafting outcomes not just a copy / paste. These will be added into an appendix to the document on Outcomes. By the next meeting an implementation and communications plan for this document is to be drafted and everyone at the meeting was asked to provide input. Transfer Reviews Anna Chiva (Head of SEN Team at AfC) presented the status of the transfer reviews for children who are moving from Statements to Education, Health & Care Plans (EHCPs) in Phase 1. Anna acknowledged that there have been some issues, specifically around: Process - information to the SENCOs has caused some confusion. Also there continue to be issues with getting Health and Social Care input to the process. Capacity – the SEN team remains overstretched. Also there is a lack of capacity particularly among therapists and Educational Psychologists to attend all review meetings. Some parents have requested complete re-assessment and this is a discussion for the parents to have with the SENCo’s.
Reports – these are coming back late from professionals and also are taking longer than timescales allow in cases where referrals need to be made to professionals who have not previously seen the child / Young Person – again due to capacity issues Attendance at Multi-Agency-Meetings (MAM) for new EHCPs A Chiva confirmed that getting professionals to attend all MAMs is proving challenging because of lack of capacity. There was general agreement that for professionals who know the child it is most important that they attend the first Multi-Agency Meeting – where the need for an EHCP is discussed and the reports that will be needed are agreed. It may then be less important to attend the 2nd MAM – always assuming that a good draft of the EHCP was created in advance, based on input from all professionals. However currently there is not always a good quality draft going into the 2nd MAM which is why often professionals are needed at both. A Chiva took an action to draft a protocol of what attendance is required at MAMs from professionals to help as a guideline both for professionals and for families. RSFV prompted a discussion on how to strengthen the role of the Lead Professional so that they could ensure that meetings only go ahead with the right input and the right people able to attend. Issues raised by families Penny Hoffmann-Becking (Richmond SEND Family Voice) presented the top issues that have been raised through the Open Meetings and other communication channels. A copy of the Issues Report is available upon request and RSFV will be publishing a highlights report and FAQ. Some of the detailed points relating to the issues were discussed. Two actions were agreed. 1) To publish an escalation/complaints process so that parents that are having trouble with the process know where and how to escalate. 2) re-circulate the guidelines around Personal Budgets– although RSFV feel that more information on the practicality of getting a personal budget needs to be drafted. Comedy ! From ExpressCIC ( http://www.expresscic.org.uk/ ) Date: Thursday 18th June “A night of stand-up comedy and laughter featuring some of the best acts from the UK circuit… Chris McCausland - A regular at the world famous Comedy Store and the only blind comic on the circuit. Starred in the last three series of The Comedy Store for Comedy Central. Elis James - Star of BBC3 Crims and Josh, also seen on Stand up for the week and Russell Howard's Good News Don Biswas - Combining one liners and political humour with jokes around his dyspraxia and Aspergers syndrome, Don is widely recognised as one of the best up and coming acts around. Plus special guests! Hosted by John Williams - Comedian and author of the hit blog and show 'My Son's Not Rainman' about life with his autistic son. Running time 2hours 30mins (including Interval) Suitable 16+ All proceeds to Express CIC - A local organisation supporting young people with autism and their families across the borough of Kingston-Upon-Thames. See more at: http://www.rosetheatrekingston.org/visiting-productions/express-cic-comedygala#sthash.sWRy0nSq.dpuf “
The very Last of the Open Meetings Anna Chiva, Head of SEN, has attended every single meeting; so if you haven’t been to a meeting yet and have questions to ask, please come. Details are of the last meeting is: Thursday 21st May
10.30am to 12noon
Downs Syndrome Assoc, Langdon Down Ctr 2a Langdon Park Teddington, TW11 9PS
Romany & Penny Anna Chiva Jackie Grimes (IS - E)
Following the last of these meetings (for now) we plan to publish a highlights report and FAQ in June. As ever, if you have any queries at all, please ask and I'll do my best to find an answer. With best wishes, Romany RSFV phone: 07469 746 145