Teachers' attitudes towards child mental health services

Embedding interagency working between schools and mental health specialists: A service evaluation of the Mental Health Services and Schools and Colleges Link Programme workshops

There is increasing focus on the need for schools to work more effectively with specialist mental health providers, but there have been historic challenges in embedding closer interagency working. This article reports the results of a service evaluation of a 2-day workshop designed to facilitate improved working between schools and children and young people's mental health services (CYPMHS). Mental health leads from 255 schools, mental health professionals and other key stakeholders all took part in one of 26 two-day workshops across the United Kingdom. The impact on interagency working was examined using changes in pre- and post-survey results, changes in self-reported aspects of interagency working and 10 local reviews of practice. The pre-post questionnaires showed improvements in interagency working (e.g. 55% of school leads reported being in 'monthly' or 'continuous' contact with the National Health Service (NHS) CYPMHS¹ at follow-up, compared with 24% at baseline). The group-completed CASCADE framework showed an overall increase in collaborative working, although some areas continued to report significant challenges such as in relation to common outcome measures. The local reviews found positive changes in interagency working, in terms of building relationships, improved communication and sharing good practice. This service evaluation of the workshops found some evidence of improved interagency working between schools and CYPMHS, but more controlled research is needed to consider generalisability and scalability.

The views and opinions of CAMHS professionals on their role and the role of others in attending to children who self-harm

Self-harm in young people is a common presentation to mental health services. There is little literature, however, on how professionals view their role and the role of others within the assessment of these young people, and the relative accountability. This study explored Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) professionals' views of these roles utilising a qualitative framework. The interviews of 18 CAMHS professionals from different disciplines were analysed using a thematic approach. Findings showed participants to be clear regarding the remit of their own role and the purpose of the assessment process, but were less confident in the abilities of those outside their service. They commented on the ongoing problems of stigma in this area and the difficulties with multi-agency working. Findings suggested possible ways to ameliorate these problems; however, the current economic climate may not be conducive to this.

Service user perspectives of multiagency working: a qualitative study with children with educational and mental health difficulties and their parents

BACKGROUND

Recent policies recommend effective joint working between health and education; however, the views of service users are underrepresented, particularly opinions of young children.

METHOD

The project was operational from 2005-2008 when interviews were conducted with parents and children. The children were attending CAMHS for mental health and educational difficulties.

RESULTS

Results indicated that they had a positive view of multiagency working. They consider that joint working is limited by a number of problems and make recommendations for improvement.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings indicate that more effective communication between agencies is needed and this should be provided for parents in an accessible language. This has implications for training professionals together.

Priority mental health disorders of children and adolescents in primary-care pediatric settings in India 4: training and capacity building

Training in the primary-care child and adolescent mental health should take into consideration the local milieu, national health care education and development. It should aim to improve the mental health knowledge, competency as well as develop professional relationships between various primary, secondary and tertiary-care mental health providers to enhance outcomes. The collaborative training between the various stakeholders in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) should be enhanced. Currently, the favoured methods, to augment the training for practicing Primary-care Physicians, like CME and short training programs with their specific goals, settings and methodology are well documented. However, to improve the skills in CAMH for medical trainees at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, restructuring of the curriculum is essential.

Child mental health practitioners' knowledge and experiences of children's educational needs and services

The improved joint working between child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) and schools is a policy priority. Although there have been a range of school-based initiatives and studies on teachers' awareness of mental health issues, there has been limited evidence on the training needs of CAMHS practitioners. The aim of this study was to explore how much CAMHS staff know about educational issues and how confident they feel working collaboratively with education colleagues. Ninety-six staff from four specialist CAMHS completed a questionnaire with 40 items on perceptions of knowledge, practice and attitudes towards educational issues and services, and three case vignettes. Despite the fact that participants reported frequent contact with children with education-related needs and with education services, they also highlighted concerns about their level of training and skills in this regard. Perceptions of knowledge and attitudes significantly predicted response to case vignettes. Previous training and experience were associated with knowledge, but did not predict case vignettes scores. The results suggest that training of CAMHS staff should be integral to all services in helping improve their understanding of school and education systems, improve clinical skills in detecting education-related mental health problems, and develop strategies in increasing joint working.

“Joined on rather than joined up?” Primary mental health work in Scottish schools

Purpose

Primary mental health workers have been based in West Lothian schools since 2003 to act as links between the community and hospital‐based services. The research programme this paper describes aimed to examine how this model worked and its impact for children and their families.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper reports on interviews with secondary school staff, the link workers and comparative post‐holders. The research study was qualitative and the research question was “What is the perceived impact of Mental Health Link Workers in West Lothian schools?”.

Findings

The paper finds that Primary mental health workers felt that their main contribution was building capacity in the community to support children with mental health problems, and identified four strands to this: space, relationships, skills and containment. Two described direct access for children and their families as the main gain. Secondary school staff considered that the greatest impact was for children at the onset of mental illness, and their own knowledge and skills.

Practical implications

Primary mental health work in the community is fairly new in Scotland. This study suggested that it speeded up and improved access to services for children in need of mental health assessments and services. It was based on temporary contracts and short‐term funding. Sustainability within schools may only take place when the work becomes well resourced.

Originality/value

The paper is a detailed look at the views of Primary Mental Health Workers based in schools and school staff.

How do nurses and teachers perform breast self-examination: are they reliable sources of information?

Background

Breast cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related deaths among women worldwide. The aim of the present study was to determine and compare knowledge, behavior and attitudes among female nurses and teachers concerning breast self-examination (BSE).

Methods

Two-hundred and eighty nine women working in Aydin, Turkey (125 nurses and 164 teachers) were included in the study. The data were collected using a questionnaire designed to measure the knowledge, attitudes and behavior of the groups. Analysis involved percentiles, χ² tests, t tests and factor analysis.

Results

The knowledge of nurses about BSE was higher than that of teachers (81.5% versus 45.1%; p < 0.001). BSE practice parameters (i.e. age groups, indications, frequency) were similar (p > 0.05), whereas skills in performing self-examination were higher in nurses (p < 0.001). Fear of having breast cancer is the most frequent reason for performing BSE. Among nurses, the reasons for failure to perform BSE were the absence of prominent breast problems (82%) and forgetting (56.4%). The teachers who did not perform BSE said that the reasons were lack of knowledge on how to perform self-examination (68.9%) and absence of problems (54%). Both groups had unacceptable technical errors in the performance of BSE.

Conclusion

We conclude that nurses and teachers should be supported with information enabling them to accomplish their roles in the community. To improve BSE practice, it is crucial to coordinate continuous and planned education.