Connection rather than correction

I recently sat down with Nadia head of our clinical team at Timeout, Nadia informed me of the exciting new changes within the clinical team and how this will affect the organisation in a really positive way.

The clinical team has expanded to include several more clinicians, the team now has nine staff members. The clinical service is embedded within school and care now. We have Nathan school counsellor and Katie Assistant Psychologist/TA based within Riverbank and Brearley hall and support from Brookland will be in place as they open.

There are many new cges, we are holding weekly multidisciplinary team meetings in education. All three schools have had their first meetings with good outcomes and plans for the children. This means all students are being discussed and planned for regarding support.

The TAC meetings are working well in care and the feedback from managers and carers has been positive. The discussions include whole team presence which means collectively the entire team discuss how to support children.  In addition, this adds to discussions around accountability, every person at Timeout is accountable for their own practice. They ALL bring something to the table.

Nadia told me that every child is on the caseload of a clinician within care, and in six months’ this will be the same for education too. Therapy is not always direct face to face sessions but includes giving children and their carers space to think about how to support their needs. Nadia is proud to say clinically we are doing this for every child, whether that’s through carers, managers or their social workers. It’s happening! What amazing news this is!!

There are also clinicians visiting the homes and supporting carers in development sessions and to discuss therapeutic activity during shifts. This is the focus for Nadia at the moment, she is working with Chen, Practice & Safeguard Lead, to plan what a working shift looks like and how it can be as therapeutic as possible.

In addition to this, they have accepted referrals from the community for mental health support for children and families. Although this is in the early stages, we expect to see this area growing over the next year. Lex, Specialist Child & Adolescent Art Psychotherapist will be at the forefront of supporting this growth.

As always, the team have been on hand to support children experiencing difficulties within our residential care and i’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the clinicians who have made themselves available to support the teams.  In addition to this, their support in training has been invaluable. More carers are attending training and we have a pass rate of over 90%. Nadia pointed out to me how hard the team all work and we are all grateful for this throughout the organisation.

Big Thank you goes out to the team Lex, Lorna, Kathy, Hannah, Katie, Demi, Beth and Nathan. All of the above has been possible with your support.