| Child and Adolescent
Mental Health TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT PROJECT www.camhs.org |
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| The Higher Education Institutions | CAMHS Workers Training Escalator | Where to From Here? |
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TRAINING
INSTITUTIONS: It is quite clear from the breadth of the project brief, the geographical size of Kent and Medway the complexity of the links between the three statutory agencies, not to mention the interface with the voluntary sector and the complexity and diversity of the county’s communities that no one strategy for education, training and development will be able to be developed. The focus here will be to work with regional education and training groups/consortia and higher education providers to develop sustainable local training programmes. This will not only focus on the provision and development of recognised education and training in child and adolescent mental health it will also look at ways in which child and adolescent mental health can be integrated into already existing programmes. The integration of child and adolescent mental health will require strategic and gradual approaches. Good practice models will undoubtedly be helpful (with appropriate adaptations to local needs). It does seem that much will depend on seizing windows of opportunity within existing institutional capacity and with the presence of potential innovators who can become advocates for change. Supportive (and available) people will need to be identified and enlisted. Child and adolescent mental health policies and strategies and programmes will need to be communicated/disseminated, as this will provide official recognition of the need and the necessity of change. This will not be done in a broad stroke but will rather target specific areas. This project needs to be seen as part of an ongoing process to find ways of introducing child and adolescent mental health and development into pre-registration education and training and continuing education, training and development of mental health, health professional and allied disciplines/ professions throughout the region. As a start the Health and Social Care departments of the three Higher Education Institutions servicing Kent and Medway were targeted. |
