Supporting transitions in child and adolescent mental health services: a rough guide to introducing peer support

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to share the lessons learnt during the implementation of a Peer Support Worker (PSW) pilot project within Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). The project aimed to reduce the barriers experienced by young people and carers during the process of transition between child and Adult Mental Health Services (AMHS). Design/methodology/approach – The paper combines reflections of staff, PSWs and trainers in order to share the lessons that may be taken from this project. This includes a rough guide for those hoping to employ PSWs to support transitions. Findings – The PSWs provided the vehicle to support the process of transition by empowering young people and their carers to use their strengths to facilitate a hopeful and timely transition. Recommendations regarding support for peers, staff and the organisation during the process of training and employing peers are discussed. Research limitations/implications – The paper provides a purely reflective account of the pilot project. These reflections may provide guidance for others wishing to develop peer support positions within CAMHS so that an evidence base for the effectiveness of peer support within transitions may continue to grow. Originality/value – Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust are the first NHS Trust in the UK to employ PSWs specifically to support transitions between CAMHS and AMHS. This paper builds on the work of Oldknow et al. (2014) to highlight the first attempts to use peer support to support transitions.

A systematic review exploring youth peer support for young people with mental health problems

“…The engagement role of YPSWs was reported in most of the included studies, and involves building trust, reaching out, reducing isolation, and (re-) engaging young persons in youth mental healthcare [9,10,16,18,20,28,[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]. YPSWs are uniquely qualified for this role as their lived experience enables YPSWs to start relationships grounded on equality, authentic empathy and a non-judgmental attitude [17, 20, 28-31, 36, 39, 40].…”

“…To meet the needs of these young people, it is necessary that services put more emphasis on recovery, consumercentered care and empowerment of service users, and less emphasis on traditional clinical models focusing on treating psychiatric symptomatology [6][7][8]. A promising approach to assist youth mental health services in providing more recovery-oriented care is the involvement of peer support workers (PSWs) [9,10].…”

“…These positive impacts include increased hope, empowerment, self-esteem, and increased treatment engagement of service users [14]. While these results are promising, these studies mainly concern adult mental health services [10,15].…”

“…A growing number of studies is exploring the involvement of PSWs in youth mental health services [9,10,[15][16][17][18]. These PSWs are typically referred to as youth peer support workers (YPSWs).…”

Informality, advocacy and the sharing of lived experience in peer support work

“…Norton's conceptualization of informality in peer support work is in the context of Irish adult mental health services, but his reflections are arguably translatable to other settings where this aspect of the work is also important. We were interested to read this perspective due to our own involvement in supporting the development of a peer support work role in a specialist child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) team in England, a care context where the uptake of peer support delivery and principles of co-production has tended to be slower (see, e.g., Lambert et al 2014;Norton, 2021).…”