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"This is absolutely what Every Child Matters is all about." This was how the judges of the Community Care Awards summed up the Lewisham vulnerable young children's team, the winner of the interagency category.

Set up in September 2003 in the south London borough, the team aims to increase the social inclusion of children and families and to work with schools to help reduce students' emotional and behavioural difficulties. It brings together School Home Support, an organisation that specialises in working with children and families at school, and Lewisham's child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs) under Lewisham's behavioural education support team, the lead agency.


"It was felt there was a gap in service provision to support children and families and we saw that support could be directed to where children mostly are - which is in school," says Liz Bailey, the behavioural education support team manager.

The project works with five primary schools, chosen because they had received little external support. "We put a School Home Support worker in each school," explains Tracy Blackwell, School Home Support's London regional manager. "Each school also has a designated line manager and a designated Camhs worker. Referrals come from the line manager. We discuss who is best placed to support that young person - this may be the home support worker or it might be Camhs," she says.

The range of problems is diverse and the project is structured to enable quick and flexible response.

School Home Support workers make home visits, meet parents at school, run group and one-to-one sessions for parents and carers. The Camhs service in school means there is immediate access to these services and support for families.

"If children are having punctuality or attendance problems it is usually an indicator that something else is happening at home," Blackwell says.

This is the first time that Camhs workers have had direct access to the schools.

Jo Mitchell-Dawson, one of the Camhs staff, emphasises the advantages of being in school. "We can do an initial assessment of the family and then provide tailored packages of support. We work closely with the teachers so are able to look at the systems that are being used to manage children and can suggest changes that can help improve behaviour."


The project has been able to build a relationship with children and families or where necessary refer them to other services. In the past year, the team has made 118 home visits and seen 844 pupils and 301 families in school. As a result, there has been a marked reduction in the levels of emotional behavioural difficulties experienced by children.

Bailey believes one of the project's strengths is that it does not stigmatise: "Often people have a problem with the term mental health," she says. She believes it is important to deliver services where families can reach them. "Families in crisis may not be able to get across town to access the services they need."

Blackwell says there are big benefits in having agencies working together. "We are able to share experience and best practice."
Winning the award has given the whole team a real boost. Blackwell says: "It is all down to the hard work of the school home support and the Camhs workers."

The win was also welcome news for Martin Roberts, team manager for Lewisham Camhs and Lewisham vulnerable young children's team operations manager. "It's nice to be able to celebrate achievement instead of focusing on problems," he says,

Future plans include developing and improving the service, and the award money will allow them to do some group work with parents - something that had been on the backburner due to a lack of resources.