CHILD PRIMARY MENTAL HEALTH WORKER

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Background:

The interface between primary frontline care and secondary specialist care is becoming increasingly seen as crucial in the effective management of child and adolescent mental health and emotional well-being.  Many ways of achieving this have been proposed and yet we are still not clear on what the best way forward is (To read more click here).  The child primary mental health worker (CPMHW) has been proposed as a new role to improve the interface through the provision of clinical care in primary care and by improving the skills and confidence of primary care staff.[1]  Gale & Vostanis (2003)[2] argue that strengthening the provision of child and adolescent mental health services at tier 1 can be achieved through a combination of support, consultation, training liaison and joint working.  It has been suggested by the Health Advisory Service[3] that the CPMHW role be open to a wide range of senior professionals with a child mental health back ground i.e. nursing, social work, psychology, occupational therapy, medicine.  Gale & Vostanis (2003) propose the following as core attributes of a CPMHW.

Core Attributes of a Child Primary Health Worker:

• Specialist knowledge of child and adolescent mental health
• Experience of working in a community setting with children, adolescents and their families
• At a senior level within their profession, with ability to take responsibility for decision making and autonomy
• Comprehensive mental health assessment skills
• Ability to provide clinical supervision and consultation to other professionals on a variety of levels
• Ability to design and deliver training programmes
• Excellent communication and networking skills
• A range of direct work/therapeutic skills

To read more about the role of the Child Primary Mental Health Worker click here.

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Last edited 10/06/2004