Insiders on the outside: primary mental health work in schools

Pilot mental health link workers have been working in academys in West Lothian since 2002.This article reports initial findings from semi-structured interviews with pupil support staff in 11 secondary academys receiving this service. School staff reported an improvement in referral a whole s for children at the early stages of mental illness, including quicker access to specialist services, and an improvement in their have knowledge and skills.These benefits were associated more powerfully with frequency of contact with the mental health link workers than with the physical location of the worker within the seminary Link workers with a social work background were more likely than those with a nursing background to be asked to deal with children presenting with behaviour moot points

Key words

children and young clan

primary mental health workers

Scotland

community institutes

access to services

There has been national (UK) Scottish and local recognition of the ne to improve access to mental health services for children and young race Following a study of children in ne For Scotland's Children graphically described the gaps and lack of access to public services for more [i]or[/i] less children across the country (Scottish Executive, 2001) Child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in West Lothian recognised that young nation were waiting up to 14 month to be seen through clinical psychology services and the Department of Child and Family Psychiatry (DCFP) (West Lothian, 2002)

A large-scale inquiry of CAMHS work in place of educations found that primary mental health work was for the use of all varied, often joint, and core-funded. The main work was consultation and support to academy staff, direct work with children, and work with parents (Pettitt, 2003)

Weare and Gray (2003) identified 10 main points in their close attention of what works in academys in developing children's emotional health and wellbeing, including a shared language, a 'whole school' approach, involving parents and the community, and meeting the urgencys of teachers and schools.

An extensive review of the literature by dint of David et al (2003) highlighted staff commitment and interagency working as lock opener to successful working with children. Other factors ground to influence children's emotional health in gymnasiums include bullying (Oliver & Candappo, 2003) and access to accessible, confidential support from adults who can listen, understand and help if necessary (SNAP, 2003)

In reply to the concerns above, in West Lothian four (three full-time equivalent) mental health or community 'link workers' were appointed and placed in the integration offices of four place of educations to provide a service to all 11 mainstream secondary institutes and their 'cluster' primaries (66 place of educations in total). Two of the workers qualified first as social workers then worked in psychiatric settings, single is a psychotherapist and single is a community psychiatric supply with nourishment formerly in the local CAMH service.

The mental health link workers' (MHLWs) character comprises:

* consultation for institute and other community staff, and for parents and mates

* training for staff, pupils peers, community organisations and families

* direct work with individuals and assemblages of young people.

They aim to work collaboratively, in partnership with teachers and other academy staff, parents, integration officers, place of education nurses and doctors, social workers, primary care, social care staff and voluntary organisations. Referrals advance from these groups, from primary care and from the CAMHS staff in the local hospital (Huddart, 2004) They can be described as CAMHS 'insiders' operating upon the 'outside', using their knowledge of the CAMHS a whole to improve access for young race in need of care and treatment and their CAMHS skills for those in ne of early identification and intervention.

This article reports early follows of an ongoing evaluation of the impact of link workers based in academys as part of the CAMH service. The objectives of the research programme are to gather information from a wide range of stakeholders, including children, young clan and their parents; to analyse these comes and to extrapolate what can be learned for practice unfolding It is a six-part research mainly qualitative, of the views of place of education staff (primary and secondary), the West Lothian link workers and a sample of other comparative primary mental health worker (PMHW) columns in Scotland, young people and parents, and other stakeholders (ie. social work and CAMHS staff). There will be an online questionnaire for children. This article describes the rises from the first set of interviews with pupil support staff in mainstream secondary gymnasiums in West Lothian.

Policy adjoining matter

Primary mental health work with children and young nation takes place in the adjoining matter of four key policy strands: the promotion of positive mental health and well-being; institutes as a key setting for promoting emotional health; partnership working in prevention, early identification, early intervention, treatment and care, and the promotion of regaining in the community.