Supporting children and young people with their mental health and emotional wellbeing
The transition from childhood to adulthood is a difficult time for everyone, but it is also a crucial period that can define personal development and life opportunities. The challenges related to this transition are even more pronounced for young people with mental health difficulties, who are likely to need additional support. We were commissioned by the Local Government Association (LGA) to conduct a qualitative study and identify examples of good practice, success stories and promising initiatives in supporting young people’s mental health transitions.
We held a series of semi-structured interviews with Councils in England as well as with young people who have transitioned from children’s and adolescents’ mental health services (CAMHS) to adults’ mental health services (AMHS), or to community-based services. Findings from this study have been brought together by the LGA in the report ‘Supporting children and young people with their mental health and emotional wellbeing’, which includes 7 case studies of Councils that had good practice to show and success stories to share in supporting young people in their mental health transitions. The report includes a section capturing young people’s voices and expanding on their experiences with children’s and adults’ mental health services in England. That section identifies the unmet needs of service users and their recommendations regarding: i) what is working well for them and should be further developed, and ii) what is not working well and requires change. A final section in the report brings together overarching suggestions and recurring themes, as these came up during interviews with both Councils and young people.
The report brings together overarching suggestions and recurring themes, acting as a valuable resource for Councils that wish to restructure their mental health services for young people during their transition period. It is also aimed to increase the understanding of the whole sector on what mechanisms and procedures work best.
Key findings include:
Working in partnership with the Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG) and the voluntary sector has enabled Councils to adjust to reduced budgets (where that was necessary), but also to truly transform their services and address young people’s needs timely (before reaching a point of crisis), holistically and more efficiently.
Deciding on the right service young people need to transition to, as well as determining the correct timing for this transition, should be based primarily on their specific needs rather than diagnostic models and fixed pathways.
The low rate of successful transitions, as well as the lack of alternative services for young people to transition to, have increased the workload of CAMHS and GPs and created greater demand for the in-house therapeutic groups and one-to-one counselling offered by colleges and Universities.
Vulnerable groups (such as care leavers, asylum seeking children and young people with neurodiverse needs) are more likely to be faced with unmet needs and fall through the cracks of the system. This is because of the rigid categorisations of care in health and social care services, which tend to neglect that several groups of young people need simultaneous support from both sectors.
The services had to adjust to supporting young people remotely as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has motivated professionals to explore new ways to engage with them. To an extent, this has allowed them to reach out to young people who would normally not present at services themselves to ask for help. A hybrid model, according to which services will be available both remotely and in-person to young people, is expected to be further developed in the near future.
Read the full report: Supporting children and young people with their mental health and emotional wellbeing