Conference Proceedings

2008 Faculty for Children and Young People Annual Conference

CYP Annual Conference 2008
Conference Venue: University of Nottingham
Faculty for Children and Young People

From: 09 Nov 2008
To: 09 Dec 2008

 
Peer-Reviewed

Holding the uncontained toddler: What can clinical psychology offer a Tier 2 Community CAMHs team working through the terrible twos?

S. Lyons
Children and Young People's Trust

K. Taylor
Children and Young People's Trust


This paper describes the journey of becoming the first Community Child Clinical Psychologists in a Tier 2 CAMHs team - driven by innovative and creative mental health and family support workers providing a service within systems and infrastructures in their early infancy. The journey from being the new kid on the block to team manager is explored, in relation to the colourful and tense myriad of competing agendas inherent in working in a Children’s Trust yet seconded from the NHS; being a clinical psychologist in a non-clinical setting; adding a new discipline to a mental health team; working alongside Educational Psychologists as a team within a team; and negotiating the wider context and case territory of our older sibling - Tier 3 CAMHS. This and more, whilst meeting the needs of a hungry toddler or better still, enabling her to flourish.