Family Ambassador

**LOCAL FAMILY AMBASSADOR**: Greater Manchester CAMHS Inpatient Lead Provider Collaborative

WE NEED YOU We need passionate family members or carers who have lived experience of their child or children being admitted into children and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) inpatient services and want to make a difference.

We are always looking at ways we can improve so that families and carers have the right information and support they need and are able to understand hospital processes in a clear and uncomplicated way.

The Family Ambassador role has been developed in response to a range of recommendations from various reports identifying that the voice of parents and carers in their young persons' pathway is often not heard and can be excluded from essential decisions.

**Family Ambassador**: Overview - YouTube

**A bit about the Family Ambassador role**:

- You will gather the views and needs of families and carers and provide feedback to the inpatient staff across our areas
- You will support parents, carers and families from the admission of their child until they are discharged
- You will help them to understand how inpatient services work, explain any jargon and simplify information into everyday language that is easy to understand
- You will help parents and families to have the confidence to engage and participate in the proposed care for their child
- You will ideally have some local knowledge of children and young people’s networks and support groups and advise families where they could get additional help and support if they need it
- You will be the first point of contact should they want to raise any areas of concern
- You will feed into the Quality Assurance Process in the Lead Provider Collaborative for all CAMHS wards within Greater Manchester

We hope that your previous skills and experience will give you the confidence to work proactively with the inpatient ward as well as supporting communication between the clinical team, families and carers and helping us to build upon our compassionate and responsive approach.

We want all children and young people in Greater Manchester to have consistent and equal access to the very best inpatient mental health services, and we need you to help us make those changes.

You’ll be supported by the Head of Quality and Compliance as well as others involved in the regional Family Ambassadors role.