professionals
CAMHS and Schools
Introduction
Specialist Community Advisors are closely clinked to the schools in North Derbyshire and can be contacted for free training, advice and consultation to staff about how to support children to improve their mental health. The SCA’s can also advise about the most appropriate local support service to meet an individual child’s needs should they be struggling with their emotional wellbeing.
If your child is being supported by CAMHS, then we may ask your permission to liaise with their school teachers, pastoral staff or SENCo, so that we can share our impression and advise about support or approaches that may improve your child’s mental health whilst they are at school.
What we can offer
We are not teaching experts and so are not able to give specific advice about how a child is taught or recommend a specific school to suit their needs. However, we could offer the following advice to school where appropriate:
Details about how their mental health presentation might affect your child and the type of situations they may find challenging
Clarify the type of mental health difficulty they are experiencing, how it is affecting them, and what intervention they need or are having from us.
Recommend how environmental adaptations might improve their mental health
Recommend specific approaches that professionals should adopt
Sometimes we are formally asked to :
Contribute to an EHCP ( Education and Health Care Plan)
Write a report for a Tribunal or
Attend a Tribunal
Such requests can only be made by the Local Authority via our SEND single point of entry. We are unable to accept formal requests direct from families.
Questionnaires for Assessments
In child health or CAMHS, a nursery or educational setting may be asked to complete one of these questionnaires with the consent of the young person or their carer. This is then returned to the relevant service. It provides vital information to support a range of assessments.