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1240/5/1(433)
WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES BY DEPUTY G.P. SOUTHERN OF ST. HELIER
ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 18TH JULY 2017
Question
Will the Minister inform States Members what the full complement of staffing is across the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service and state what positions are currently filled by temporary, interim or agency staff?
What recent progress has been made, if any, in managing the caseloads of child social workers, especially those dealing with crisis interventions?
Answer
CAMHS Staffing July 2017
POSTS | NUMBER OF FTE POSTS | STATUS | VACANT | COMMENTS |
Admin & Managerial | 3 | In post | 0 |
|
Lead nurse | 1 | In post | 0 |
|
Core nursing Staff | 3.6 | Vacant post out to advert | 1 |
|
Duty nursing staff | 2 | In post | 0 |
|
Clinical social worker | 1 | In post | 0 |
|
Family therapist | 2 | Vacant post out to advert | 1 |
|
Psychologists | 4.1 | 3.5 in post | 0.6 |
|
Assistant psychologist | 1 | New post - out to advert | 1 |
|
Consultant psychiatrists | 2 | In post | 0 |
|
Primary mental health workers | 2 | In post | 0 | Seconded to Education |
Agency psychologist | 0 | 1 in post | 0 | Fixed-term contract to deal with waiting list |
Agency medical staff | 0 | 1.2 in post | 0 | Fixed-term contract |
Totals | 21.7 |
| 3.6 |
|
Managing the caseloads of child social workers
The answer to written question 379 of 4 July 2017 gave details of the increase in caseload of the children's social work service. The answer also explained that to deal with this increased caseload, staff across children's social work were being deployed to assist at the front door' in the assessment and support of children and families considered to be in need of social work assessment.
These arrangements are still in place, with all Children's teams part of a rota whereby they are on such duty once every five weeks. All social workers assess and progress the cases that are allocated to them until it is appropriate for the case to close or have ongoing intervention.
This structure supports the teams with higher caseloads to progress or close down cases, whilst ensuring all children who were referred into the service receive a quality assessment.
Since November, an extra social worker has been recruited to each team to provide extra capacity across the service and recruitment of qualified social workers continues. Caseloads have reduced during this period. The service is also in the process of restructuring. It follows the model described above, whereby each team has one week on duty enabling the other teams to have time to complete assessments before their next duty week. This model will ensure consistency of social worker and equity of caseloads by enabling flexibility across teams to allocate across the service.