She might be reluctant to admit it, but Jackie Colley, commissioning manager for child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), and her colleagues in Derby are ahead of the game. Since 2005, the local authority has been running multi-agency training courses in mental health for everyone in the city working in children's services. So far, 510 school nurses, teachers, learning mentors, youth workers and other professionals have attended.
The government has caught up with the work that Colley and her colleagues have undertaken and is expected to flag the course as an example of good practice in the forthcoming CAMHS review. The interim report, published in the summer, said "child development and approaches to improving mental health and psychological wellbeing should be a specific aspect of training" for anyone who comes into contact with children and young people as part of their job.
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