Children & Young People's Enhanced Support Services (CYPRESS)
Who we are
We provide a specialist service in West Sussex supporting young people with a diagnosable learning disability, who are presenting with significant challenging behaviours. The CYPRESS team is made up of a number of specialist learning disability and mental health professionals including: clinical psychology, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, nursing and behavioural specialists. We work closely with our social care, education, residential and health colleagues.
We work with children and young people aged 5-17 who experience emotional, communication, and behavioural problems. This can include showing behaviours which indicate that the young person/child is struggling with the experiences they encounter on a day-to-day basis. Often these feelings can be expressed through behaviours which can be difficult to manage and may be causing worry or harm to either themselves or others.
To be eligible for the CYPRESS service:
- The young person must be aged 5-17 years old and have a diagnosable learning disability.
- The home/family/educational situation must be at risk of breaking down in the near future.
- The young person must be on the local Dynamic Support Register and rated as Amber or Red; and therefore, be at risk of an inpatient admission or 52-week residential placement, or already be in one of these.
- The young person must present with behaviours of a nature or complexity whereby primary preventative approaches have proven insufficient, and behaviours that challenge are likely to persist or become more serious, to the point where a child/young person and/or others are at risk of serious harm and where people are at risk of exclusion from ordinary community settings (including admission to hospital or out of area placement).
- The young person’s family must consent to the referral and indicate some motivation to engage with CYPRESS.
- The young person must have an allocated social worker.
- The young person must be enrolled at a West Sussex special school.
- Network consultation service: Network consultations are used for in-depth discussion about a young person with their parent/carer and the network of staff that support them in other settings. This is likely to include their social worker, class teacher and other care staff e.g. personal assistant and short breaks key worker. During these meetings we will explore the behaviours identified for discussion and think together about how to best support the young person. We aim to come to a shared understanding of the difficulties that the young person is facing and formulate recommendations and action points to enable the situation to move forward.
- Direct case work: Direct case work is offered to young people who have behaviours which are described as complex and challenging in a range of settings. The team can work more intensively with a young person, their family, and network in order to develop, support and review new ways of working that address the difficulties that the young person is experiencing. This is likely to include meeting the young person in the settings that they access and working closely and collaboratively with their family and other professionals involved in their care.
We accept referrals from the child or young person's social worker, special school, paediatrician and other CAMHS services. To access the team, the child must have a named social worker and attend a West Sussex special school.
Information discussed within sessions is treated as confidential. However, if we are concerned about the safety of a young person or another, we will share this information with other professionals as part of the Child Protection and Safeguarding policy. If this is the case, we will always try to inform those involved of what we are doing.