Specialist forensic outreach team
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About the service
The specialist forensic outreach team provides a community based service to service users who are still under the care of specialist forensic psychiatry. The team is based at the Bretton Centre at Fieldhead, Wakefield, covering the Kirklees and Calderdale areas.
We provide a service that monitors health and social welfare as well as monitoring mental health and managing risk. We offer practical support with housing, benefits and with activity and employment. The service is staffed by both health and social care staff.
Care is based on the Care Programme Approach (a particular way of assessing, planning and reviewing someone’s mental health care needs) and clients and carers are included in the planning process from the outset.
Why would someone choose the service?
- Clients and carers included in the assessment and planning stages of care and throughout the whole duration of the care period
- Supports discharge from secure inpatient care as quickly as possible
- Reduced relapse and re-admission rates after discharge
- A supportive team approach that provides practical support for all aspects of life including financial, social and emotional support
Staff you may meet
- There are more than 60 different specialities that doctors work within the NHS. Each is unique but there are many characteristics which are common. Roles range from working in a hospital to being based in the community as a GP.
- Nurses who choose to specialise in the mental health branch of nursing work with GPs, psychiatrists, psychologists, and others, to help care for patients. Increasingly, care is given in the community, with mental health nurses visiting patients and their families at home, in residential centres, in prisons or in specialist clinics or units.
- The NHS employs a wide range of clinical staff, it wouldn’t be possible to list them all on this website! All our clinical staff are skilled, dedicated professionals who adhere to high standards of training and work-place practice.
- Social workers help, support and protect people who are facing difficulties in their lives. They help people to take positive steps to overcome problems and improve their lives. This could involve assessing and reviewing a service user’s situation, building relationships with service users and their families and agreeing what practical support someone needs.
Why a professional should choose the service
- This team is part of the clearly identified pathway for service users of the low secure service
- Client centred approach using the principles of the Care Programme Approach
- Multi-agency collaborative approach to risk monitoring and management
Support offered
Practical support which may include:
- Family work
- Recreational activity
- Self-care
- Social skills
- Health screening
- Group work
- Onward referral to other services which may be able to help further
- Risk monitoring and management
- Medical treatment
Outcomes
- Improved physical health
- Improved functional capacity (ability to carry out tasks)
- Relapse prevention
- Self-management skills
- Risk management
- Transition to local mental health services
Referrals also accepted from:
Referrals accepted from secure mental health services.
Referral criteria:
The service is commissioned to provide specialist outreach for service users discharged from secure mental health services into the community and to provide advice and act as a consultation service to reduce the need for admission to secure services.
Referrals are made from consultant to consultant in writing and are discussed at the team’s referral meeting on Mondays. Referrals should include a full psychiatric and risk profile.
Clients that will be offered a service are those with a clearly identifiable mental illness with a high-risk profile of risk to others.