More Staff & Shorter Waits For CAMHS?

There will be three times more staff working in Jersey's Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services if a recruitment drive is successful.

CAMHS saw referrals jump by a quarter last year from 683 in 2020 to 855 in 2021, with a total case load of almost a thousand youngsters at the end of last year.

The new head of the service says Dr Daren Bowring, despite that, waiting times have 'significantly decreased'.

Families had been waiting 18 months for autism assessments, and a year for ADHD.  Its now three for the former and 4 to six for the latter.

"We have made a start.  We have made some in roads into waiting times and as we begin to implement the mental health strategy this year and we receive the Government Plan monies we are making significant investment into our capacity.

We have got 18 vacancies out at the moment.  These are new job to add to capacity within our services.

We are moving up from about 21 positions to  - by the end of this year, we hope to have 64 staff with what we call our Health & Wellbeing function."

Dr Daren Bowring (right) 

"We'll have a dedicated Duty & Assessment service, with the aim of when referrals come in they are going to be seen really quickly.  We are going to be investing in an Early Intervention Service as well.

We have a number of positions to address areas where we have seen growing need - for example eating disorders. We are looking for a specialist eating disorder nurse and a dietician.

Hopefully the investment in those services will reduce waiting times considerably and also improve the service for children and young people coming in and needed support for their mental health."

Meanwhile, the government has announced an independent review of the current mental health support given in Jersey schools.

It will be carried out by the Anna Freud Centre.

The team will develop a framework for schools and give recommendations around what is needed to improve the quality, consistency, and impact of support.