Rationale

The child or young person’s mental health care plan should be based on a multidisciplinary assessment of needs and risks co-ordinated by a lead CAMH professional. Appropriate gathering of information from other agencies is essential to identify all needs and risks and to ensure continuity of care and support. The agencies involved should work collaboratively to make best use of existing relevant information from other sources. This also reduces the likelihood of children or young people and their parents/carers, where appropriate, being repeatedly asked to give the same information.

With the consent of the child or young person and their parents/carers, where appropriate, relevant information from the mental health care plan should be shared with other agencies involved in the child or young person’s care.

Children or young people, and their parents/carers, where appropriate, should be actively involved in the development and review of their mental health care plan. This should include agreeing the goals and outcomes that are important to them, and the interventions being considered to help achieve these.

Care planning information should be made available, where appropriate, to children or young people with regard to their mental health difficulties and the interventions being used or considered. Information should also be available, where appropriate, to parents/carers to support them to care for their child.