Government advisers moot virtual mental health lead for looked-after children
Neil Puffett
Thursday, October 19, 2017
A single person at every council across England should be made responsible for championing the mental health needs of looked-after children, a group of experts established by government has said.
An expert group set up last year by the Department of Health and the Department for Education in order to "develop care pathways that will support an integrated approach to meeting the needs of looked-after children with mental health difficulties" is due to report its findings to government next month.
Ahead of that, the group has revealed that one of its central recommendations will be the creation of a "virtual mental health lead" (VMHL), akin to the virtual school head teacher for looked-after children, which became a legal requirement through the Children and Families Act 2014.
The group, which is co-chaired by Peter Fonagy and Dame Christine Lenehan, said it envisages the role having the same principles of championing the needs of young people, monitoring progress in local areas, intervening where needed and promoting best practice, but with a focus on mental health and wellbeing.
"We would see the two roles working closely together," a statement issued by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (Scie), which is supporting the expert group, said.
It said the position would hold responsibility for system leadership, monitoring mental health and wellbeing plans that local areas have in place for looked-after children, collecting local data to help embed best practice nationally, providing support and challenge where needed for individual young people, and developing strong multi-agency relationships.
"The working group discussed at length where this post should be located and concluded that on balance, it should be a health-based post with the VMHL having sufficient expertise and professional credibility to communicate and where needed challenge health professionals," the Scie statement said.
"However, to effectively deliver improvements, the post-holder must have the skills and authority to work across all local organisations."
Last month, a study by Barnardo's found that around two thirds of care leavers with mental health problems are not receiving specialist support.
A study by the charity of 274 of its care leaver services cases found that 125 young people had mental health needs but 81 (65 per cent) were not receiving specialist support from a mental health service.
Earlier this year it was confirmed that planned trials to assess the mental health of children entering the care system have been delayed.
