Permanence and Throughcare CAMHS

One of our mental health workers from CAMHS provides input to Sheffield City Council's permanence and throughcare team for Looked After Children (LAC) and care leavers.

Referrals are only accepted from social workers or support workers and their managers at the Permanence and Through Care Service. One of the main aims is to provide consultations to the service staff, and for all LAC and care leavers known to the service for their emotional and psychological well-being.

These consultations can include:

• Helping to identify a young person's needs
• Working to prevent the disruption of the care placement
• Supporting carers, by developing their knowledge, skills and capacity to meet young person’s needs
• Assist in placement planning, where a young person has significant mental health or complex needs.

Additional aims of this service are:

• To signpost to other services where CAMHS is not appropriate.
• To contribute to the development of appropriate protocols, for work with other agencies, and in guiding transition work with LAC and care leavers.
• To provide informal training for staff, individually or in groups on mental health and emotional well being
• To provide interventions to looked after children and care leavers up to age 19 where this is not available from other services. 

Interventions may include:

• Individual assessments
• Short term ‘bridging work’ when young person is awaiting a specialist service from another CAMHS service
• Joint work with another agency, especially at times of transition like leaving school, moving into (semi-)independent care. The CAMHS worker will liaise with or refer on to other mental health services if an identified need cannot be met.

This service also aims to maintain a referral route for looked after youngsters when they move geographically from Sheffield to other areas as placements change. The aim is to link young people with existing services rather than replace or duplicate what already exists elsewhere.