The Contribution of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Specialists to Care Planning in Child Care Proceedings

Abstract

In September 1997 the President's Interdisciplinary Committee organised a conference to look at issues around Care Planning. As important as the content of the conference was the aim of fostering mutual understanding and the cross-fertilisation of ideas across disciplines. Papers were given by judges, social services directors, guardians, Department of Health representatives, researchers, and child and adolescent mental health specialists. Interdisciplinary workshop discussions followed each paper generating group views and papers. All the papers have just been published as a book (Clarke, 1998).

Dominating themes were the question of what, if any, influence the judge can exert over the Care Plan, the possibility of refusing to make a Care Order because of an unsatisfactory Care Plan, the value of the Care Plan and the accuracy of its details as a way of furthering and protecting a child's needs, the uncertainty about the proportion of cases where the Care Plan is altered or abandoned for good or bad reasons or major drift occurs, and ways of improving the quality of Care Plans through interdisciplinary co-operation. Various ways of dealing with these issues were suggested.