Attuned practice: a service user study of specialist child and adolescent mental health, UK.
OBJECTIVE
Best practice emphasises user involvement. This exploratory study addresses the views of teenage clients and their parents on service delivery in a specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) serving a population of 250,000. It aims to explore some of the complexities inherent in children's services when parents are integral to modes of treatment.


METHODS
Twenty-seven teenage clients from specialist CAMHS were recruited with their parents (n=30). All were white British, 11 boys and 16 girls, from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds. Focus groups were employed using a series of structured interactive technique to elicit information, preceded by home visits. Analysis of interview data followed standard approaches to qualitative data analysis. Descriptive statistics were generated from both home interview data and focus groups.


RESULTS
Three themes emerged: the core values implicated in establishing a therapeutic alliance; the style of therapy and mode of practice (i.e. its inclusiveness of different family members).


CONCLUSIONS
Core therapeutic skills are of fundamental importance. Our paper supplements a model of organisational user involvement with a model of therapeutic user involvement for use in negotiating mode of practice.


CONCLUSIONS
This exploratory study was a collaboration between service users, researchers and health professionals exploring three important themes of therapy and the complexities inherent in children's services. The process of eliciting views was therapeutic in itself leading to the formation of a parent-led self-help group. The design can be replicated in other specialist CAMHS to achieve attuned practice.
Hart
Angie
A
Faculty of Health, University of Brighton, Westlain House, Falmer, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 9PH, UK. a.hart@brighton.ac.uk
Saunders
Alex
A
Thomas
Helen
H
D000293:Adolescent; D000296:Adolescent Psychiatry / Q000379:methods*; D002648:Child; D002665:Child Psychiatry / Q000379:methods*; D003256:Community Participation; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D006113:United Kingdom; D000078329:Workforce