Meet the team

They will review your care each week in the weekly Clinical Review Meeting (CRM). They will also meet with you at other times during the week to review their care.

The ward doctors will feed back the reviews with you to the unit consultant psychiatrist. The consultant psychiatrist is responsible for your clinical care and will also attend the CRM each week. The consultant is also available to meet with young people and their families/carers at other times by prior appointment arranged through our ward

Every young person admitted to the ward sees a Clinical Psychologist for psychological assessment and/or therapeutic intervention as appropriate.

Routine outcome measures (rating mood, behaviour, resilience, and risk) are collected for everyone. If appropriate, more individualised psychological assessments may be carried out.

Psychological therapy may include treatment relating to past or present traumas, difficulties with mood or emotional regulation. Therapy may be aimed at alleviating symptoms (e.g. by learning coping strategies to use when in distress or in a crisis). Individual work is always tailored to the individual, and may be informed by multiple therapeutic models, including,

• Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
• EMDR
• Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
• Cognitive Remediation Therapy
• Systemic therapy, Attachment Therapies
• Solution Focused Therapy
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
• Compassion Focused Therapy

Young people meet with their Psychologist on a weekly basis or more depending on need.

You will be offered time with a Family Therapist. The difficulties young people face when they come into hospital not only affects the young person, but often impacts on relationships and family life. Young people and families face unique challenges when someone is admitted to an inpatient unit. Family and systemic psychotherapy (known as family therapy) can help those in close relationships to better understand and support each other. It helps family members to express and explore difficult thoughts and emotions safely, understand each other’s views, appreciate each other’s needs, build on family strengths, and work together to improve their relationships and their lives.

On Poplar Unit young people and families are offered an initial meeting with the Family Therapist to explore the current situation and discuss if Family Therapy would be helpful. Sessions are tailored to family members. Family sessions can be used in lots of different ways. Some families choose to have frequent regular sessions during the admission, while others might wish to only meet once, or occasionally, to address specific issues.

When you have settled in on the ward, the Occupational Therapist (OT) will arrange to meet with you discuss your needs.

The aim of Occupational Therapy is to identify if you’re experiencing any difficulties with your mental or physical health, which is preventing you from being independent with the activities that you want or need to do.  These activities may include learning, gaining employment, socialising, caring for yourself and maintaining a balanced routine which includes things that they enjoy doing or which help them to relax. The OT may do some assessments to better understand your needs.

A treatment plan can be agreed with you, to support you to problem solve any difficulties.  You will have the opportunity to attend a group programme and/or individual sessions which are tailored to your needs and interests and it will also be considered whether any equipment or adaptation to the environment would help you to achieve your goals. You will be supported to develop coping skills and strategies to help you to stay well and to lead the life you choose when you are ready to be discharged.

An activity co-ordinator will help run groups and activities on the ward in the evenings and weekends. Activity co-ordinators work closely with the Occupational Therapist, so your time with them also forms part of your care and assessment. Other times activities will be put on to keep young people entertained during their admission.

You will be allocated a key nurse on admission, who will start to work on understanding your needs; this will often remain an ongoing piece of work as we gather further information during the admission. The key nurse will also support you to write some care plans. The care plan is designed to identify your needs, and an action plan agreed of how the team can work with you in working towards meeting those needs. The care plan will include goals and achievements towards recovery and will be individual for you. The frequency of meeting with your key nurse will vary, but we would expect you to meet and review your plan of care each week.

You will also be allocated an associate nurse, who will be a support worker on the unit; they will support the role of the key nurse and offer additional support. The role of the key nurse will also be to liaise with the families/carers of the young person and engage them in the care plan where appropriate.