Agenda item

The emotional wellbeing and mental health offer for children looked after update report is attached.

Officers spoke to the report and in summary shared that the service’s remit was to commission health services around emotional well-being and mental health, from online support to tier two support and specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) provision.

Officers shared that all referrals were received through the Single Point of Contact (SPOC) Team in children services, and there had been an increase of the referrals due to the pandemic and national lockdown. Support was provided following triage and reviewed by the CAMHS specialist who would decide where the best support could be provided to the young person or intervention for treatment. This included Off The Record, NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) who would provide support service to those sexual assaulted and abused and SLaM CAMHS services.

During the pandemic and national lockdown, the service had increased their online presence for emotional wellbeing support, The service commissioned Kooth which offered free online support including peer support, anonymous chats and young people could also talk with a psychologist. Off The record and Drop In services both offered online counselling and virtual sessions.

The service had just under £500,000 pounds invested for children’s and young people mental health across a range of different areas, this looked further into transition from children’s and adults services to key transition stages. The service invested in locality workers to have named workers within specific geographical areas in the borough; the service had also increased offer in education, health care plans and crisis care during the difficult times.

Panel Members commented on the number of referrals received and queried how many referrals became active cases in comparison to the numbers referred. Though officers did not have the detail in numbers at hand, they advised that support provided to those referred had increased as the referrals were channelled through the SPOC team, therefore even if a referral requested low level intervention, the individual would still be signposted to a service to support those needs; no referral should be rejected, unless the referral was incorrectly completed for Early Help intervention instead of a mental health specific service.  

Panel Members welcomed the additional investment and additional number of workers that had been provided, and requested further information on whether any of the additional services had specific specialism in autism and also requested information on the progress of the introduction of a new diagnostic pathway in respect of autism and neurological issues. Officers advised that there was an additional investment into neuro developmental service within CAMHS who would be supporting on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) assessments through the education health care plan process and an ASD assessment CAMHS. In regards to the ASD and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) pathway and review for the diagnosis and assessment, officers shared that they were at the signing off stage, and thus no decision had been made for the long term restructuring of the model. It was not known whether the progress of improvement be impeded by the financial challenges Croydon Council was facing in terms of funding, though the decisions should not be affected.

There were comments from the Young Director regarding whether there was a time period for the engagement of supported service given to a young person, and also enquired on the policy around serious case reviews towards the deterioration of a young person’s mental health. Officers informed that a young person should be able to engage with the supported services for as long as the individual required, though the level of intervention may change if necessary, for example, if the specific treatment or intervention had not provided a better outcome, an alternative intervention may be tried, or a stepped down approach to an original intervention for continued support may be proposed. With regards to young people at a crisis level, there were frequently missed opportunities where a young person required more intense support than what was offered, however, though there were no serious cases reviews as such, officers acknowledged that early intervention with supported services for a young person was essential to prevent crisis level and the gap.

In response to a question raised by a Member of EMPIRE enquiring on how the service responded to emotional wellbeing needs of young people and what support was offered, officers informed that they had enforced a more responsive service approach that met the needs to a young person and family. The service had developed an in-house clinical service that had a number of trained clinical therapists who would work alongside social workers, families, young people and their networks to prevent young people becoming very unwell leading to unfortunate matters. By this, officers had decommissioned the CAMHS budget to put towards the in-house service where they would conduct visits at school or home. The in-house service recognised that mental health required early intervention and support where there were high risk concern, thus the individual and their networks would receive support from the in-house service in addition to other supported service such as Off The Record, Croydon Drop In, NSPCC and CAMHS, and there was no timespan on the service provided to young people and families. The in-house service had so far completed 442 consultations and had undertaken 190 therapy sessions, which had all taken place within the community. A lot of work was also being done with foster carers to support those managing young people who may be unaccompanied asylum seeking children who may have experienced trauma in their own homes. Support to foster carers would include how these could be identified early and what their needs were, and also how the foster carer themselves be supported as mental health often made people very worried and very fearful leading to anxiety, lack of confidence, as they struggle to know how best to support young people; and thus the service was creating infrastructures within the organisation to support those that required support. Officers further informed that two mental health workers had been appointed from the grant received from Department for Education who worked directly with young people doing direct work with frail emotion mental health. They had also completed training to provide peer support to those with low emotional health.

The Panel RESOLVED to note the report.