Building Effective Child and Adolescent Mental Health Neighbourhood Teams: Key Questions to Consider

 At THC Primary Care, we provide resources for primary care network leaders.

In this blog, we are sharing some thoughts and reflective questions for those of you looking to build and enhance integrated working.

Whilst this blog uses children and adolescents’ mental health services as an example, the principles can be transferred to other services.

Let’s jump in!

This blog is based on actual conversations taking place with a primary care network we are supporting.

🔹 Who are your key stakeholders?

If you're designing a children's mental health service, could you consider how to bring together multiple organisations?

You may explore ways to meaningfully engage primary care networks, schools, specialist services, local authorities, and voluntary sector organisations to create a collaborative approach.

Whilst it's not mandatory, I do recommend plotting out your service in a diagram or mind map to help create an immediate understanding of where each organisation fits and where the gaps are.

🔸 How will you measure impact?

Have you thought about how you'll demonstrate its effectiveness?

Could you consider metrics that show not just increased activity but improved experiences and reduced pressure on specialist services?

🔹 What is your recruitment and retention strategy when hiring new roles?

If you're creating new positions, how might you structure them to ensure staff retention?

Perhaps you could consider how practitioners might maintain connections to specialist services while being embedded in neighbourhood teams and how supervision and development opportunities will support them.

🔸 How do you define roles and responsibilities?

Could you think about how role definitions might prevent duplication and ensure efficient use of different skill levels?

If you're building a multidisciplinary team, how might you allocate clinical responsibilities, administrative tasks, and care coordination functions?

🔹 Where are the boundaries?

If you're navigating the intersections between children's mental health, neurodiversity, behavioural challenges, and physical health, how might you define service boundaries?

Could you consider processes that help avoid duplication and prevent patients/service users from falling through gaps?

🔸 How will your service be commissioned?

If you're working across organisational boundaries, have you considered how funding will flow?

Could you explore how resources might be allocated across different partners to ensure sustainability?

🔹 What is your approach to upskilling the wider system?

If you have mental health specialists on your team, how might they share their knowledge with non-specialists in the neighbourhood/network?

Could you consider ways your team might offer training, consultation, and support to build capacity in primary care and other settings?

🔸 What is your approach to communicating and engaging with the various stakeholders?

If you're bringing together multiple services, have you thought about communication channels?

Could you consider what formal and informal methods might keep key partners informed and engaged with your evolving service?

🔹 Do you need to align with other neighbourhood services?

If your area already has mental health support in schools and early help services through local authorities, how might your service complement rather than compete with existing provision?

Could you explore opportunities for alignment and partnership?

🔸 What digital and physical infrastructure is needed?

Have you considered the practical resources your team might need to function effectively across multiple settings?

If you're working across organisations, how might you address needs for consultation spaces, IT systems, and administrative support?

🔹 How will you involve patients and carers in the design of your service?

If you're developing a new service model, could you consider how young people and families might contribute valuable insights?

Perhaps you might explore methods to meaningfully incorporate their voices from the earliest planning stages.

🔸 What does the patient and carer journey look like?

Have you mapped out how children and families will navigate your service from initial contact to appropriate support?

If you're redesigning pathways, could you consider how to ensure families connect with the right services rather than being redirected elsewhere?

🔹How will you plan to share resources?

If you're aiming for true integration, have you considered resource pooling? Could you consider how your model might enable the efficient use of limited resources across organisational boundaries?

We hope this serves as a helpful starter for ten.

Work With Us

THC Primary Care is an award-winning healthcare consultancy specialising in Primary Care Network Management and the creator of the Business of Healthcare Podcast. With over 20 years in the industry, we've supported more than 200 PCNs through interim management, training, and consultancy.

If you are looking for support in integrated working, please get in touch with us at admin@thcprimarycare.co.uk with a little information on what you are up to and where you would like to progress.

Our expertise spans project management and business development across both private and public sectors. Our work has been published in the London Journal of Primary Care, and we've authored over 250 blogs sharing insights about primary care networks.

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