Headspace Toolkit



	JARGON* BUSTER *What the words in this toolkit mean, and words people involved in your care might use Advocate - someone who gives information on your rights and who can help you to get your views, wishes and feelings heard. They can talk things through with you and can speak on your behalf. They do not work for the health or social care services, so they are completely on your side. There may be an advocacy service available to support young people on the ward. Approved Clinician - a health professional who has been approved to provide care and treatment for patients who are subject to the Mental Health Act. An Approved Clinician could be a doctor, nurse, social worker, psychologist, or an occupational therapist. Approved Mental Health Professional - one of the three people needed to approve the detention of a person under the Mental Health Act. The AMHP could be nurse, social worker, psychologist, or an occupational therapist Assessment - this is a process where you, your parents and your care team work out what your mental health needs are and what you need to meet them Best Interests - a phrase used by professionals to describe what they think is best for you. It may be considered that your mental health problems are affecting your ability to make judgements about what is best for yourself and so those involved in your care may make some decisions based on what they think is in your best interests. CAMHS - child and adolescent Mental Health Services promote the mental health and psychological wellbeing of children and young people, and provide multidisciplinary mental health services to all children and young people with mental health problems Capacity - (competence) Your ability to understand, hold information in your mind, think about and communicate what you want. This is assessed by your doctor and would involve considering your capacity to make a decision about your care. Capacity is seen as being something that can change at different times for people in mental health units. In the Mental Health and Mental Capacity Acts it is used as a measure of someone’s ability to make a particular decision. So, for example, a person may be considered competent to decide what to wear when they get up in the morning but not competent to decide on a particular course of treatment. Care Plan - sometimes known as a ‘Treatment Plan’. A plan, agreed with you, of the action to be taken by you and your unit that will try to meet your health and social care needs. Your first care plan will be created out of what is talked about at a pre-admission or assessment meeting (this usually happens before you are admitted to your unit unless you have been admitted in a hurry). Confidentiality - the treating of your information (medical or other) as private and not for sharing. Within your unit “not for sharing” will mean not sharing outside of those that provide care for you. You should always be told if your care team wants to share it with anyone else and why. Consent - your permission for something to happen e.g. consenting to take a particular medication. Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT) - this is a treatment where a brief electrical stimulus is given to the brain via electrodes placed on the temples. The electrical charge lasts between 1-4 seconds, and causes an epileptic-like seizure. For some people it is a very effective treatment for conditions like depression. Empowered - being able to do something. Here we use it to mean being able to do something yourself when before you couldn’t. It’s also about feeling confident and the feeling you have of being able to stand up and make yourself heard by adults Formal Patient - someone who is subject to the Mental Health Act. ‘Gillick Competent’ - this applies especially to young people under the age of 16 and means that if a doctor decides that you have ‘sufficient understanding’ of what is being suggested and can weigh up information and understand what might happen as a result of treatment then you are able to make your own decisions about treatment. So if judged to be competent then a young person can consent to treatment just like an adult. With this goes a right to respect the person’s entitlement to confidentiality. If a young person refuses to consent then it may be that a parent, carer under a care order or the courts can legally override them. However, Human Rights Law is changing the approach to overriding a young persons refusal – there is more on this on one of the information pages. Medical staff should take refusal to consent, and the reasons for it, very seriously. Human Rights Act 1998 - the Act that puts the rights and freedoms of the European Convention of Human Rights into UK law. It means these rights are enforceable i.e. in UK courts Independent Mental Health Advocate - from October 2008 if you are in Wales and from April 2009 if you are in England you have a right to the support of an Independent Mental Health Advocate if you are detained by the Mental Health Act. Informal Patient - someone who is in hospital because they or their parents or carers choose for them to be so. Mental Health Act - the law which governs the admission of people to psychiatric hospital against their will, their rights while detained, discharge from hospital, and aftercare. The Act applies in England and Wales. Its full name is the Mental Health Act 1983 as amended by the Mental Health Act 2007. Mental Health Act Code of Practice - a government document that provides guidance to psychiatrists, managers and staff of mental health units on how they should fulfil their duties. If you are detained then it sets out how you should be treated by professionals while you are in their care. It is not a law though, and staff do not have to follow it if there is a good reason not to. Mental Capacity Act 2005 - provides a statutory framework to empower and protect vulnerable people who are not able to make their own decisions. It makes it clear who can take decisions, in which situations, and how they should go about this. The Act only applies to people aged 16 and over. Mental Disorder - the Mental Health Act defines a mental disorder as ‘any disorder or disability of the mind’ Parental zone of Control - if the young person is not able to make a decision for themselves then a mental health professional will have to decide whether the young person’s parents have the authority to make a decision for them. They must decide whether the decision is one that the parents would be expected to make, and whether it would be in the young person’s best interest for them to make the decision. Psychiatrist - a person that has trained as a medical doctor and then continued to train in the specialised area of psychiatry. A Psychiatrist will normally be the person who prescribes any necessary medication for a person’s mental health problems. Psychologist - a psychologist is not usually a medically trained person and cannot prescribe medication. They are usually involved in providing ‘talking treatments’ similar to counselling but if they have ‘Dr’ before their name it means they have completed an academic doctorate and is not the same thing as a doctor who is medically trained. Responsible Clinician - an Approved Clinician with overall responsibility for the care and treatment of a patient who is detained under the Mental Health Act Second Opinion Appointed Doctor (SOAD) - is an independent doctor appointed by the Mental Health Act Commission who gives a second opinion about whether some patients should be given certain types of treatment. ‘Sectioned’ - the Mental Health Act is, like any other Act of Parliament, divided into Sections. This has coined the term "being sectioned" to mean ‘being detained’ in hospital. The proper term for this is “detention” or “being detained”. Self advocacy - speaking up for yourself and getting your views across about whatever is important to you. Significant Harm - physical or mental mistreatment that affects someone’s health or development in a way that is judged to have a serious effect on them. Stigma - is about disrespect. It is the use of negative labels to identify a person living with mental illness. Stigma is a barrier and discourages people and their families from getting the help they need due to the fear of being discriminated against Supervised Community Treatment - this is where a patient remains subject to the Mental Health Act after they leave hospital. They will be expected to keep on having treatment, and there could be other conditions, like where they must live. If necessary, they can be made to come back to hospital. Treatment - any medication, therapy, tests, nursing or care given to you with the aim of helping you feel better and to get better while in hospital. UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - an international human rights treaty that applies to every child and young person age 17 and under. The UK has agreed to follow in its law making all of the rights for children contained in the Convention. This does not mean that these rights are the law but that they can be used to argue for young people’s rights in any meetings, review or situation relating to them.


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