Transitioning from child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) to adult services can be challenging for young people, their families and clinicians. Assessment of, and support for, young people’s needs at the point of transition can be enhanced through personalised care and support planning. This article describes a service improvement project which aimed to provide ‘step-down’ support for young people on discharge from a CAMHS. The service, called Positive Pathways, involved collaborative personalised care planning with a dedicated youth facilitator, social prescribing, and in some cases the provision of a personal health budget, to enable young people to access individualised support in their local community.

Mental Health Practice. doi: 10.7748/mhp.2022.e1628

Peer review

This article has been subject to external double-blind peer review and checked for plagiarism using automated software

Correspondence

s.bisp@northumbria.ac.uk

Conflict of interest

None declared

Bisp S, Robertson W, Attree S (2022) Supporting young people who are leaving child and adolescent mental health services. Mental Health Practice. doi: 10.7748/mhp.2022.e1628

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Helen Farmer, associate director of children’s services, Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board; Jane Itangata, (interim) deputy director of mental health and health inequalities, Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board; Janet Blair, senior programme manager, Personalised Care Group, NHS England; the local CAMHS teams; and the participants in the service improvement project, who are at its centre

Funding

The service improvement project described here was funded through Transformation in Mental Health as part of the NHS England NHS Long Term Plan

Published online: 29 September 2022