Session 6: Professional support for children and their mental health
Introduction
During the previous sessions, you have seen that there are many systems around the child and their family that can support a child’s mental health. Within the wider community, therapy and support can be in the form of community or clinic-based as well as hospital (including inpatient) health services. Other valuable support can be via social care or education professionals working for schools, local authorities and charities. Working together with several different professionals and agencies can yield benefits in terms of a child’s mental health, but also some challenges, and you will consider these points.
In this session, you will explore some of the key principles of working with professionals or agencies and discover why multidisciplinary working is important to help support and improve children’s mental health.
Now listen to the audio introduction to this session.
Transcript: Audio 1
By the end of this session, you will be able to:
- understand some of the roles of key health, education and social care professionals who support children’s mental health and wellbeing within the community
- have knowledge of referral processes to services such as Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)
- explain many of the principles, benefits and challenges of working with other professionals as part of an interdisciplinary approach to children’s mental health
- reflect on the ways in which voluntary organisations such as Home-Start and other statutory services can work together to support the wellbeing of young children and their families.