About our CAMHS Community Learning Disability team

• What do we do?

  We meet young people, families and the services supporting these families.  We work together to assess and better understand a young person’s experiences and behaviour.  Then we support them and their families to work towards their chosen goals.
   
  We appreciate that families can be involved with lots of services, so offer a monthly consultation clinic to professionals who wish to discuss the needs of a young person.

• What kinds of difficulties do we work with?

  The young people we work with have moderate, severe and profound learning disabilities, and may also have other neurodevelopmental conditions such as Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Downs Syndrome, and epilepsy.
   
  We see children and young people who experience a range of emotional and/or behavioural difficulties such as: -
  
  Anxiety
  Anger and aggression
  Repetitive behaviours and routines
  Low mood, sadness
  Difficulties complying with parents/adults instructions
  Agitated, unsettled or disruptive behaviours
  Poor self-esteem
  Self-harm
  Psychosis

• What kinds of work do we do?

  We will meet with the young person and family to talk about their concerns and what they would like to change about their current situation.
   
  We assess their difficulties by talking to them, their school and other services they might be involved in (with families’ permission).  We may use questionnaires or assessment measures to help us understand the difficulties. 
   
  We make decisions with families to set goals for our work together and how to achieve them.  Here are some examples of the work we do:
  Parenting interventions e.g. work on boundaries and behaviour management strategies
  Work on family routines like sleep, toileting, eating
  Individual work with the young person
  Supporting school staff around a young person’s needs
  Exploring and expanding children’s play skills
  Exploring the impact of the difficulties upon the whole family including siblings
  Developing family communication strategies (both verbal and non-verbal)
  Provide further information about a young person’s diagnosis
  Work around family relationships
  Consider what other support family may need as a family

• What is the impact of our work?

  The changes that some of the families we have worked with have made are:
  An improved understanding of their child’s disabilities and difficulties
  Better routines at home; such as sleep, toileting and eating
  More confidence managing behaviours at home and when out
  Exploring ways to play and spend time together
  Strategies for the young person to deal with emotions such as anxiety and anger
  Improved links with other services
  An improved understanding of their child’s emotions and how they affect their behaviour
  
  We aim to deliver a high quality service to evaluate the work we do with each family, who are asked to complete questionnaires to help us assess their progress and to enable us to develop and improve our service.
  The team leader has a national leading role in developing outcome measures for young people with learning disabilities and mental health difficulties in liaison with CORC (CAMHS Outcome Research Consortium).
   

• Where do we work?

  In addition to our main site at Becton Centre for Children & Young People the service has developed a number of regional clinics serving Rotherham and Doncaster. 
  
  The team is part of the Sheffield CAMHS Learning Disability Service, which also includes an inpatient assessment unit.  The community team is involved in teaching multiagency training, local and national audits.

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