Working in ATOM

Achieving Together Outstanding Memories (ATOM) 

The ATOM Team in Wigan Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) area are a specialist service funded by the Integrated Care Board and Wigan Children's Services. We are a team of Clinicians from Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (GMMH) working alongside our peers in Wigan Council to support and provide a wide range of services to children, young people and their families (CYPF) that are experiencing difficulties in the family setting within the Wigan borough. The team offers a trauma-informed, evidence-based approach to supporting children, young people and their families/carers.

Young people and their families may be impacted by their emotional wellbeing, mental health, family origin and lived experiences and are likely to have experienced multiple and complex traumas. This may be within a biological family, fostering household or residential children’s home. ATOM work on a principal of permanence, ensuring children remain with their carers following a period of direct intervention/support using a whole team approach. Our clinicians support different aspects of the services, ranging from supporting young people living in residential services to transition to a family-based setting, working alongside our fostering teams to recruit, support and train specialist fostering placements.

We have an exciting new development within the service as we begin our journey supporting and working alongside a new intensive adolescent support service which will sit alongside TYSS, CST to provide intensive support to children, young people and their families. The ATOM team consists of colleagues from GMMH - Clinical Psychologists, Specialist Mental Health Practitioners, and team managers - alongside colleagues from children’s services - senior residential outreach staff, registered homes, and community-based managers. All are based in one of Wigan’s registered children’s homes/REACH team. 

The team offer interventions to children and young people, their families/carers, including: 

• A robust formulation and assessment
• Direct/indirect interventions to young people and Families
• Group work and individual work
• Consultation to the team and other professionals 
• An excellent training package including PACE and NVR approaches
• Advice/support 
• ATOM works within a multi-agency forum, ensuring they link in with the children’s social worker, education leads, and other professionals as needed

ATOM is a specialist service that works within the principles of the ‘No Wrong Door’ model of care, enabling children, young people and families to access support from different disciplines under one roof. Our team work within our residential homes and local community, with access to various office spaces/bases across the borough. Working in ATOM enables our clinicians to move away from a traditional CAMHS clinic setting and work with families in their homes or within the community. This allows our team to be creative and really get alongside the young person to support them in developing different aspects of their lives.

ATOM is different because young people’s aspirations drive our practice. The lived experience of the child is at the centre of all our conversations, meetings and actions. One keyworker sticks to each young person no matter what. We are persistent. We believe in our young people and never give up on them. Trusting relationships make us successful, not professional staff structures or hierarchies. We are one multi-agency team. We work on an equal footing with partner agencies.

We make sure that our team has the training and skills to work in a restorative, strengths-based and therapeutic way to help transform the lives of the young people you are working with, using models based on PACE and NVR principles. We support our team to use their judgement to make the right decisions for young people. Sometimes this means being creative, thinking differently, and trying things out for the first time.

We are always working towards permanence for young people. We are happiest when our hubs are empty and young people feel settled within a family or a community.