Snapshot of achievements of the National Early Intervention Programme

The NEIP has helped to plan and facilitate a number of hothouse events around the country. These events bring together Early Intervention practitioners, service users/carers, organisations with a youth focus and health care commissioners to work together to find solutions to localised issues affecting young people with psychosis their families and carers. These issues have included working with Child and Adult Mental Health Services (CAMHS), working with Black and Minority Ethnic groups and specialist training for Early Intervention Teams.

The NEIP hosts and facilitates quarterly meetings for NIMHE Regional Development Centre (RDC) Early Intervention Leads, enabling the programme to take forward regional issues on a national platform as well as providing regional leads with peer support, a chance to share information and exchange practice in this newly developing area of mental health.

The NEIP supported the national tour of the drama production “On the Edge” by the Exstream Theatre Company, the tour gave 123 performances to more than 5000 people. The drama explored issues of psychosis through the experiences of a young man, his family and friends. The programme hosted an end of tour conference to show case the production and celebrate its achievements.

The NEIP supported production of a leaflet version of the EPD following a hothouse event in the North East. The programme has distributed approximately 7,500 leaflets to carers, users and a range of services working with young people.

In partnership with Dr Vanessa Pinfold, Rethink Research Department, the NEIP supported by NIMHE RDC EI Leads, carried out a mapping exercise to audit EI services across the country. The mapping recorded a 90% return and showed encouraging growth of new teams as well as concerns around their fragility; the findings have been accepted for publication in Psychiatric Bulletin later this year.

The NEIP with the support of Rowan Purdy, NIMHE National Information Lead have utilised information technology as a way of sharing information within the EI community. The Early Intervention Group is recognised as one of the most used on the Knowledge Community.

Following on from a hothouse, the NEIP has supported RDC EI Leads to develop and pilot a specialist training CD-Rom for EI Teams. The CD-Rom will form part of an information ‘give away’ pack at the forthcoming International Early Psychosis Association UK National Early Intervention Conference in October 2006.