Guidance and counselling services

Tender description

An intervention service for children and young people (aged 3-16) and their families where there are emotional and behavioural issues at risk of escalation. An integral component of this work programme is increased community-embedded service provision, delivered as early as possible, that is grounded in an understanding both of the toxic impact of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and trauma and an understanding the power of relationships to mitigate against the impact of these. The purpose of the service would be provision of assessment and intervention for children and young people and their families with emotional and behavioural difficulties. The service must be: Psychological formulation-based, short-term (interventions up to three months), community-embedded, accessible, evidence-based. Aneurin Bevan University Health Board (ABUHB) is seeking to commission an intervention service for children and young people (aged 3-16) and their families where there are emotional and behavioural issues at risk of escalation. Community-embedded Family Intervention is part of a wider, ambitious work programme that ABUHB and its partners are undertaking to transform service provision for children and young people with mental health and emotional wellbeing issues and their families. An integral component of this work programme is increased community-embedded service provision, delivered as early as possible, that is grounded in an understanding both of the toxic impact of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) and trauma and an understanding the power of relationships to mitigate against the impact of these. ABUHB believe that this transformational work programme has the potential to change the landscape of service provision for children and young people, and that that key elements (including Community-embedded Family Intervention) can be sustained through rebalancing where public resources are spent, with an increased focus on service provision that intervenes early and prevents escalation. In order to realise this vision, it is imperative that the provision of Community-embedded Family Intervention is able to demonstrate an impact on interdependent service areas, thus enabling a rebalancing of resources within health and local government systems. The purpose of the service would be provision of assessment and intervention for children and young people and their families with emotional and behavioural difficulties. The service must be: — psychological formulation-based, — short-term (interventions up to three months), — community-embedded, — accessible, — evidence-based. The service will be provided across the Gwent region with the exception of the Caerphilly Local Authority area, for whom this model of provision is delivered by the Family Intervention Team. The service provider will roll provision out across Gwent in a stepped process, providing coverage by the 2020/21 financial year of the local authority areas of Blaenau Gwent, Monmouthshire, Newport and Torfaen (co-terminous with the North and South Gwent Integrated service for Children with Additional Needs (ISCAN)). Access to the service should be through the single point of access for children’s emotional wellbeing panels that will be operational in each of the Local Authority areas of Gwent from early 2019, though to ensure accessibility the service must also be open to other mechanisms of referral, including self-referral. Key outcomes that the service will be expected to achieve include the following: — reduced severity and impact of emotional and behavioural difficulties, — improved family ability to cope with the impact of emotional and behavioural difficulties, — achievement of outcomes agreed with families, — positive experience for families, — prevention of escalation to specialist and statutory services (Education, Social Service, Youth Offending Services, specialist mental health and neurodevelopmental services).