Stockport believes that implementing the THRIVE Framework for system change (Wolpert et al., 2019) will enable them to fulfil the drive in Future in Mind to move away from a tiered system of services for children and young people’s mental health to one that can organise care around the needs of children and young people.
Stockport’s priorities are to reduce silo working and the boundaries between services to reduce the likelihood of children falling through the gaps. An initial plan was to integrate current tier two and three CAMHS teams across health, education and social care. Another focus is to strengthen joint commissioning for CAMHS between the CCG, local authority and schools using the language of the THRIVE Framework and the i-THRIVE Approach to Implementation.
Stockport sees value in the THRIVE Framework being an easily understandable conceptual framework that can be used across all children’s services. Stockport have established an Integrated CAMHS Partnership which meets regularly to develop plans and monitor developments around children and young people’s mental health. The Partnership is embedding the i-THRIVE Approach to Implementation into their planning and will be further developing the knowledge and skills of the partnership in relation to i-THRIVE.
To date, implementing the THRIVE Framework has helped Stockport to move beyond a rigid tiered structure and enabled better conversations between agencies about cases. It has also helped to better articulate the needs of the children and young people for whom significant improvement in their mental health is currently unlikely. This has allowed for packages of care to be developed which focused on maintaining the person’s wellbeing and managing risk.
Stockport have used the THRIVE Framework to map their care pathways and have commissioned a piece of work to enhance the role of the voluntary sector in providing community support for children and young people. The THRIVE Framework has also started to be used in schools to improve and better co-ordinate mental health support in schools.
Stockport has used the children and young people’s mental health growth monies to allow their CAMHS to develop a more outward facing role. This has involved developing CAMHS capacity to reach into key services to provide support and consultation to key teams (e.g. Multi Agency Safeguarding and Support Hub, Local Integrated Children’s Service, schools and care leavers team). Task groups have been created to lead on specific areas including parent/infant mental health and mental health in schools in addition to an independent sector forum.
Priorities going forward include the following:
Ensure the resilience of the specialist CAMHS and provide earlier access to treatment: This will especially be working in the,‘Getting More help’ domain.
Develop new approaches to early intervention: This will especially seeks to address weaknesses in the ‘Getting Advice and Signposting’ and ‘Getting Help’ domains. Stockport CCG is very keen to work with other local partners including the Local Authority and the Voluntary Sector to better align our resources and enhance current provision.
Mental Health in schools: Stockport has a mental health in schools task group which is chaired by the Local Authority. This group is using the THRIVE Framework to map current service delivery and enhance current provision. This work includes developing emotional wellbeing leads / champions, developing a schools emotional wellbeing strategy and improving relationships between schools and CAMHS.
Specialist Perinatal Mental Health and Parent / Infant Mental Health: A Greater Manchester programme is being developed to enhance specialist Perinatal Mental Health provision. Locally we are seeking to further enhance local community provision to address Parent Infant Mental Health.
Developing more effective crisis response: A Greater Manchester programme is being developed which will develop crisis response teams and enhance provision of safe spaces within Greater Manchester. Stockport will also be developing the local service to provide improved out of hours provision to compliment the Greater Manchester model.
For more information on Stockport’s work with i-THRIVE, please contact Duncan Weldrake, Joint Commissioning Manager (Children and Young People), NHS Stockport CCG, d.weldrake@nhs.net
The Stockport accelerator site is now part of the Greater Manchester i-THRIVE Programme.
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