What SCAAND offers
SCAAND is a specialist NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS). It focuses on children with complex neurodevelopmental needs.
Located in South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, it is one of the UK's top centres for mental health care. SCAAND focuses on mental health care for young people with neurodevelopmental conditions, including intellectual disabilities.
Young people are typically referred to SCAAND when they have not responded to support in their local community, or when their needs are complex and require specialist assessment to understand.
SCAAND uses a team-based approach drawing on different perspectives (disciplines). It brings together clinical and academic staff from psychiatry and psychology, and includes occupational therapists and speech and language therapists. The latest research shapes the care young people get and clinicians use their frontline experience to enhance that research. It is a genuinely two-way relationship that benefits everyone.
SCAAND and the King's Maudsley Partnership
SCAAND sits at the heart of the King’s Maudsley Partnership's work on neurodevelopmental conditions.
Professor Philip Shaw, the current Director of the King's Maudsley Partnership has worked in a clinical role at SCAAND, while Dr Matthew Hollocks, the co-chair of the King’s Maudsley Partnership’s Neurodevelopmental Community of Practice, which unites clinicians and researchers, also works with with the service.
Through this partnership, SCAAND is developing new treatment programmes for autistic young people, such as:
- A group focused on building positive identity in autism
- A Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) group designed around sensory differences
- An evaluation of a Cognitive Remediation Therapy informed intervention
SCAAND also helps with big research trials by providing clinical input and recruiting participants. This includes: