Camden Looked After Children and Refugee Team (LAC)

The CAMHS LAC Team has been in existence since July 2016 following a reorganisation of Local Authority CAMHS support in Camden.

In November 2018 the unaccompanied asylum seeking minors became a part of the team caseload during a restructure of the Refugee Service. This decision was made to ensure that a rapid and safe service could offered to them in a team which was already co-located.

The team is co-located with the Local Authority Social Work Looked after Team which aides communication and sharing of concerns.  It also enhances working relationships and knowledge.

Reasons for referral

• Risk support due to placement breakdown
• Concerns about challenging behaviour/emotional/psychological wellbeing
• Concerns about mental health and risk to self and/or others
• Consequences of trauma due to early life experiences or need to seek asylum
• Request to support transitioning a child/young person to a new placement
• Support to carers who are struggling
• Need for support and advice to the professional network around care planning

Interventions offered

• Psychiatric and psychological assessments

• Individual therapy – mixture of different interventions

• Carer work to support placements – stand-alone intervention or alongside therapeutic work offered to the child/young person

• Behaviour management support

• Psycho-educational training to carers/residential care staff who are struggling to understand a child/young person’s behaviour

• Consultation to relevant professionals and carers, as a space to reflect, to help with placement planning and if needed a referral to alternative resources

• Groups for young people ie DBT lite, psycho education groups

• Support the transition to permanent placement for a child/young person whether to an adoptive, kinship or long term foster placement

• Once child is in their permanent placement offer support to carers which is then reviewed  and if needed make recommendations and support referral for longer term support

• Groups for foster carers ie Non violent resistance, caring for asylum seekers

• Stabilisation support to UASC ie well being group

• Initial assessment of risk for UASC and signposting dependent on need, this is completed jointly with the CLA Health Team

• Clinician who specialises in working with UASCs

Specifics on clinical interventions

• Psychodynamically informed interventions

• Working systemically with the network

• Specific interventions to address trauma

• EMDR – eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing. This is a psychotherapy where a person is asked to recall a traumatic event whilst the therapist directs the patient in one type of bilateral stimulation ie side to side eye movements or hand tapping.

• Trauma focussed CBT – helping the person to change behaviour by addressing their thoughts or perceptions which create unhelpful views.

• Narrative Exposure Therapy – A narrative approach for treating therapy

• Interventions to promote attachment between children and their carers ie VIPP (Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting)  and VIG (Video Interactive Guidance)

What the team does well

• We are highly accessible –co-located in the local authority offices and sit with social workers

• We are responsive acting react quickly to requests for support/advice

• We offer outreach, visiting clients and providing a service outside of the building

• Residential placements/foster carers can find our presence and visits helpful.

• We are good at joint/collaborative working

• We can be flexible, offering a diversity of approaches dependent on each child’s needs

• We are good at keeping the child in mind

• We help the network to manage anxiety about cases.

• We have a systemic approach to support thinking.