What can education teach child mental health services? Practitioners' perceptions of training and joint working

Abstract

The importance of joint working between educational and child mental health professionals is well documented but there are numerous challenges and only limited training models. While the evidence base and training programmes for educationalists regarding child mental health is growing, training mental health professionals about education is more limited. This study presents the views of 36 child mental health and education professionals from four service localities in England regarding their experiences of joint working and perceptions of training, including a preliminary evaluation of a training programme designed to bridge this gap. The findings indicate that participants perceived that a degree of knowledge in education matters is important, and reported that this could be acquired through the development of relationships with educational professionals, setting up link posts and joint training; they also described challenges related to building experience and to resource constraints. Participants were generally positive about the training package and reported that there was a clear training need in this area.

Keywords:

• training
• child mental health
• services
• schools
• education
• joint working

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to all CAMHS staff, as well as their service and research managers, for their kind contribution. This was part of an independent study commissioned and funded by the Policy Research Programme of the Department of Health in England. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the Department. We thank Dr Michelle MacGrath for her valuable training input, and the advisory group (Dr Carolyn Davies, Dr Fiona Gale, Ms Sarah Hogan, Ms Cathy James, Ms Kathryn Pugh and Dr Morris Zwi). The services involved are anonymous throughout this paper, for confidentiality reasons.