the social workers guide
to Child and
Adolescent
Mental Health
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the social workers guide
to Child and
Adolescent
Mental Health
Steven Walker
Foreword by Stephen Briggs
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
London and Philadelphia
First published in 2011
by Jessica Kingsley Publishers
73 Collier Street
London N1 9BE, UK
and
400 Market Street, Suite 400
Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA
www.jkp.com
Copyright Steven Walker 2011
Foreword copyright Stephen Briggs 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 610 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Applications for the copyright owners written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher.
Warning: The doing of an unauthorised act in relation to a copyright work may result in both a civil claim for damages and criminal prosecution.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Walker, Steven, 1954-
The social workers guide to child and adolescent mental health / Steven Walker ; foreword by Stephen Briggs.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-84905-122-4 (alk. paper)
1. Child mental health. 2. Teenagers--Mental health. I. Title.
BF721.W225 2010
362.2083--dc22
2010004966
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 84905 122 4
eISBN 978 0 85700 226 6
To Steve Herington
Acknowledgements
My sincere thanks to all those children and young people, parents, carers, colleagues and students I have known and worked with over the past 30 years, and from whom I have gained considerable inspiration, knowledge and learning. In particular I am indebted to the huge numbers of writers, researchers, academics and professional staff whose work I have drawn upon to improve and enhance the learning opportunities within this text. Any omissions are not deliberate and detailed references have been provided to enable the reader to investigate source material further in areas of particular or specialist interest. Copyright permissions have been sought where necessary but any missing should be brought to the attention of the author and publishers. Finally a special thanks to all at Jessica Kingsley Publishers, in particular Stephen Jones, Claire Cooper and Helen Kemp, whose support and forbearance has been deeply appreciated.
Steven Walker
Contents
List of Tables and Figures
Foreword
Social work faces challenges in relation to childhood mental health, in which it occupies a marginalised position in practice whilst having as a key theoretical underpinning the importance of childrens emotional and psychological needs. It is more than 50 years since John Bowlby pointed out that psychological well-being is as important for childhood development as physical nourishment. We have now integrated this concept into our everyday assumptions and thinking; it has become embedded in our cultures that children need attention to their emotional and mental lives if they are to experience development during childhood and attain a healthy adulthood. We know that children require security of attachment, the availability of responsive and sensitive carers and opportunities for expression through play and learning and relationships. We know also that children who do not have these essentials are vulnerable and that attention paid to emotional and relational difficulties as they arise during childhood has the capacity to increase opportunities for recovery from difficulties and foster optimal development and resilience.
Recent government legislation has recognised the importance of mental health in childhood and the need to focus on providing this for children and young people who are in difficulties. The aim of developing a comprehensive child and adolescent mental health service is based on the central importance of mental health difficulties for the most vulnerable groups of children, groups that are routinely the preoccupation of social work, including children in care, refugee children, victims of child abuse, young offenders, those with learning difficulties and those with a parent who has a mental health problem, to name some of the key categories. Broadening the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) agenda in the quest for comprehensiveness has both released this work from its historically narrow professional base, usually within a medical model, and also revealed the extent of the difficulties services have in reaching and engaging with the large numbers of children and young people who have identifiable mental health issues and needs. The recent CAMHS review (Department for Children, Schools and Families [DCSF] 2008) confirms that children and adolescents have unacceptable waiting times for services and that the services they receive across the country are unequal. In making childrens mental health everyones business (Lindsey 2005), this policy has generated a laudable aim and simultaneously some key questions in order to establish how services should go about meeting these needs.
