Developed by the same team who created Star Wards, CAMHeleon celebrates and promotes Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHS) ward best practice and the things that really make a positive difference to young people, identifying small changes that have a big impact. Its overall objective is to support ward staff in enabling young people to really make the most of this time away from their usual lives.
There are 9 themes for CAMHeleon and the themes spell out ‘colourful’. The nine themes are:
1. Caring Relationships
2. Opportunity and Expression
3. Leisure and Therapeutic Activity
4. On and Off the Ward
5. Understanding
6. Relational and Physical Safety
7. Family and Friends
8. Unique Recovery Journeys
9. Learning and Growth
Mulberry Ward, a Tier 4 Adolescent Low Secure ward, have been working together to achieve the accreditation. As a result a number of initiatives have been introduced into the service, these include:
- A new library in the education centre with vocational roles for young people
- An ‘All about me’ book of likes and dislikes for young people, staff and even the therapy dog!
- Newly refurbished Occupational Therapy kitchen
- Young people taking the lead on service improvements, including staff interviews and inductions
- Easy-read signage and information available to help young people and their families/carers to understand the purpose of different meetings, spaces at the service and to aid communication.
Ali Curtis, Corporate CAMHS Nursing Lead at Cygnet said “The Mulberry team did an incredible piece of working enhancing co-production and looking at ways to improve their service. The young people were given responsibility and autonomy to implement new ideas and systems which brought the team of staff and young people together.
“The project produced some great new initiatives such as the new library and the re-furbished OT kitchen and these are already well used and well-loved areas of the service!
“Mulberry team should be really proud of what they achieved, they are the very first low secure service in Cygnet to achieve this accreditation – they have set the bar very high!”
