Working in Junction 17

Junction 17 (J17) is a 20 bed, acute general adolescent inpatient unit. We look after young people between the ages of 13 and 18. The unit is separated into two wards, Phoenix which has 15 beds and Pegasus which has five beds. We have a state-of-the-art building which includes our own on-site educational provision, Cloughside College.

At Junction 17 we help young people and their support systems to better understand their mental health difficulties and safely manage risk by supporting them to build coping strategies and functional skills using a range of therapeutic bio-psychosocial interventions. We aim to provide care that is formulation driven and least restrictive. In order to do this, we work hard to engage young people and their families in each step of the care and treatment process. We work towards a four to six week admission pathway to attempt to reduce the length of stay and to formalize the inpatient acute Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) pathway across all Greater Manchester services.

We also offer a step-down for young people being discharged from the ward who need a more comprehensive package in the community via our Day Service. All the patients at the day-service are on a step down pathway from the ward, with the goal of expediting discharge and providing more support in the community. We are fortunate to have a highly experienced multi-disciplinary team consisting of:

• Psychiatry
• Nursing
• Clinical Psychology
• Creative Therapies
• Family Therapy
• Occupational Therapy
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Occupational Therapy
• Dieticians
• Social Workers

We continually strive to improve the quality of the services we provide to ensure this is a positive and enjoyable working environment for our staff teams. We aim to provide a caring environment for our staff, so that they feel appropriately trained and supported in working with young people with complex attachments and patterns of relating to others. We provide a bespoke five-day CAMHS induction which provides staff with the opportunity to learn skills and knowledge to equip them to carry out their role on the wards. Furthermore, all staff are provided with additional training in PACE (person-centred assessment, care planning and evaluation), a therapeutic approach that helps young people to develop secure relationships with adults. It is a way of thinking, feeling, communicating, and behaving, that supports our young people to feel safe.

We provide additional continued professional development (CPD) sessions facilitated by members of the multi-disciplinary team based on feedback and the needs expressed by the staff. We also support our staff to attend further courses to enhance their knowledge and skill set such as the North West Children and Young People Inpatient Psychological Training Programme. We are committed to supporting our newly qualified staff and have developed an in-depth preceptorship course and preceptorship plus course with additional support from the services Practice Nurse Educator, as well as a rolling band 5 development programme, to help Preceptorship Nurses to develop confidence in their practice and support to attend the band 6 development course to support staff to transition.

Take a virtual look of Junction 17