"Innovative change reducing risk on adolescent unit"

I am a third year student currently on placement at The Priory Roehampton on the adolescent unit and would like to report a positive innovative change that has happened on the ward that could be shared with other adolescent units.

The team had noticed that there was an increase in self-harm behaviours in the evenings amongst the adolescents and so recruited a position (activities coordinator) in order to help keep service users busy and distracted and involved in various projects, such as a Christmas play (written and acted by the service users) and The Young Apprentice. The service users frequently say how much they value having a structure to their evenings and have something to focus on.

I have not seen this happen in any other placements but feel that other adolescent inpatient settings, as well as adult inpatient settings, could benefit from having this type of role within their team to help reduce risk levels.