Further information from the Royal College of nursing following the meeting on 18 January
Provision of school counselling services to young school-aged children
The Royal College of Nursing does not have a formal position on the provision of counselling services to young school-aged children. However, the Committee may like to be aware of some research conducted by Place2Be which assessed whether individual or group therapeutic intervention has a positive influence on children's social and emotional wellbeing. The overall findings were positive and found that young children did benefit from interventions. More detail on the study can be found here - http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14733140903031432 (Please note that this study covered England and Scotland only).
It is worth noting that interventions for young school-aged children do not necessarily have to be in the form of formal 1 to 1 counselling, but can be in family or group therapy sessions, or in the form of play and art therapy.
Two guidance documents
Development of hybrid roles e.g. hybrid psychiatric nurse-social worker
Again, the Royal College of Nursing does not have a formal position on the development of hybrid roles such as the psychiatric nurse-social worker. As stated in the evidence session, bringing a broad range of skills to the team is important, and ensuring that education and health organisations have access to advice and expertise from social workers. The Royal College of Nursing would strongly advocate for Registered Nurses who working with children to have access to Continuing Professional Development (CPD) which is integrated with social work some areas. This would enable shared learning experiences which could be mutually beneficial to both post-registration nurses and social workers. It can also be of benefit to have input from social workers at Board level within Health Boards to enable a sharing of expertise and approaches to meeting the needs of children and young people.