Custom-tailored therapeutic projects for children and families teams and camhs
Forward thinking managers make innovative changes to service provision. We know from experience, how effective interventions are, when Children and Families Teams, CAMHS and Family Support share creative models of working, that are joined up every step of the way.

At PartnershipProjects, we use highly effective psychological approaches, which have been specifically designed for the complex needs of families and young people with complex difficulties, with a history of Social Services involvement, and for Looked After Children. They are delivered most effectively as part of a programme that involves everyone, from parents and carers to social workers - working closely together with ongoing guidance by therapeutic staff. Here are some examples of projects you can develop with our support:

• Prevention of foster placement breakdown
• Preventing young people with conduct problems from entering the care system
• Returning Looked After Children back to their family
• Enabling young people to move from residential care into foster care
• Projects for therapeutic assessment of parents’ ability to change within their child’s time scale - to prevent the need for removal from the family
• Preserving families with parents who have mental health or substance misuse problems
  
  

Step one - the planning phase
We bring the key multi-agency stakeholders together - commissioners, professional leads, managers and frontline staff - to assess what kind of project you need, and how it can be built on existing resources. A Stakeholders’ Workshop enables us to introduce the therapeutic approach to you, and to plan cooperatively how the project can be integrated into existing service delivery structures.

Step two - the service model
Following the Stakeholders’ Workshop, we deliver a written proposal for the new service model. It spells out exactly how best to implement the chosen psychological approach within your service structures, in order to achieve the best results. The proposal includes clear protocols for joint working between agencies (e.g. CAMHS and Social Services, or Social Services and fostering agency), or between different departments, along with exact schedules and time frames for the interventions delivered by the project. It also provides templates for the detailed inclusion of therapeutic interventions in care plans and child protection plans, and templates for therapeutic contracts between the Local Authority, service users and the therapeutic team. Where therapeutic assessment is required, the proposal will also include a proforma for assessment reports. Especially when a project is based on multi-agency cooperation, the proposal will include an effective management model. Finally, an outline is given of specific training requirements for different professionals involved in the project, and the required consultation and clinical supervision during the start-up period.

Step 3 - getting started
PartnershipProjects can provide ongoing consultation and clinical supervision for a time-limited period during the start-up phase of the project, and deliver a training package tailored to meet your staff’s specific needs.

An example: the adolescent NVR clinic
This project can involve Family Support Services, Adolescent Support Teams and CAMHS. Where other interventions have failed to change young people’s risk-taking, aggressive, violent or controlling behaviours, a ’clinic’ using the Non Violent Resistance approach can help prevent them from entering the care system. The CAMHS professional or social worker who is carrying out the NVR, will guide each family’s social worker in integrating the intervention into the care plan, and collaborate with them in motivating the parents to take part in the treatment. Family Support will learn to provide support work as part of the intervention. Of course, this ‘clinic’ could be extended to Looked after Children and the fostering team or agency, in order to stabilise placements, or to enable a young person’s return to their family.

Another example: assessment of parent’s ability to change within the child’s time scale
Parents, who have had children removed in the past, can be assessed for their ability to change in therapy within the child’s time scale. Rather than predicting their ability to change, they receive intensive therapy, starting no later than two weeks after the pregnancy is known to the Local Authority. A contract between Social Services, parent(s) and therapeutic team spells out the exact nature of the concerns, concrete therapeutic aims, therapeutic modalities, and required attendance. The therapeutic team provides intensive Resource Based Trauma Therapy, including individual therapy for each parent, couples therapy where there are two parents, and Collaborative Parent-Child Interaction Therapy once their baby is born. A six-week interim report, monthly progress meetings involving parents and all professionals involved, and a conclusive report three months after the child’s birth inform Social Services about the change process, and to which extent their concerns have been addressed.