Professions
General
The service is provided by a team of child and adolescent psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, clinical psychologists, a specialist in adolescent psychotherapy, senior social workers, occupational therapists, administrative staff and specialist teachers. There is also input from a specialist dietician.
Training placements are provided for junior and senior psychiatrists in training, nursing students, clinical psychologists, assistant psychologists, social workers, medical students, child and adolescent psychotherapy trainees, occupational therapist trainees and visiting students.
These staff are an integral part of the service and work directly with young people under close supervision from senior staff. The unit also provides teaching and arranges training days for overseas professionals. All staff have their work supervised either within and/or outside Simmons House.
Nurses
Nursing Staff look after the unit 24 hours a day on a rota basis. Each young person has two nurse key-workers who keep in touch with them during their stay, helping with day-to-day difficulties as well as more long term aims.
Psychologists
Some young people will see a psychologist to help them think about looking at feelings and thoughts that are causing them problems. Psychologists also perform tests to help see if young people have particular problems that might need help, like problems with maths or reading.
(Click Here To See The Staff List)
Doctors
Doctors trained to think about young peoples’ emotional problems meet regularly with young people and their family and carers during the assessment. They also speak to all the youngsters admitted to Simmons House, usually weekly but this can be more or less often depending on what an adolescent’s needs are.
Your consultant psychiatrist is responsible for your overall care. He or she works as part of the team who all make decisions together. That way we believe that young people get the best possible chance to understand their difficulties and get help.
Some young people are given medication. This will always be discussed and agreed with the young person and their family/carers before it is prescribed unless there is an emergency or urgent situation that doesn’t allow time for this. We will usually prescribe some things like Paracetamol or Ibuprofen – that can be brought over-the-counter – without discussion with families, for colds or coughs if the young person needs them.
Therapists
Work with young peoples’ families or carers is a very important part of being at Simmons House. Families/carers are usually seen by two workers every other week for family therapy.
Most youngsters have an individual session once a week with a therapist on their own. We have a number of specialists in different types of adolescent psychotherapy as well as other individual therapists.
Like all the treatments that we offer we try to match the difficulty of the young person with the type of therapy that we think will help.
Occupational therapists run many of the groups in the Unit. As well as this they often meet with young people individually to help think about normal daily activities like self-care and travel. Sometimes, if we think that it will help, they can do more specialised tests looking at youngsters development and co-ordination.