Proven suicide treatment training in the United Kingdom

Beyond prevention, suicide risk is treatable. The CAMS framework^® focuses on treating ‘drivers’ that make someone want to die – because we believe that everyone deserves a life worth living!

THE UK NHS AND HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

CAMS originates from the United States where it has been approved for use by healthcare providers, veterans’ services and college students. It has also been effective within other countries’ suicide prevention work and front-line services. It has often been seen as a psychological model, which is correct as it incorporates psychological research, but it is not a risk prediction tool. Rather, with the necessary governance and procedures, CAMS can be effectively embedded into all front line services, where suicide risk is part of the presentation.

CAMS Care UK’s objective is the safe and effective training and delivery of CAMS to frontline providers, be they Psychiatrists, Liaison Psychiatry, CMHT, Crisis services, blue light providers, IAPT services, Private Counselling services, Voluntary services, as well as Psychology services.

The CAMS intervention and training programme is a model that can effectively, though not without challenges, be embedded as part of a suicide risk assessment and treatment process. It ensures the user and the clinician working collaboratively to create a risk management plan and instil hope for the user, which reduces effectively the risk of suicide and suicidal thoughts.

CAMS care UK will offer its unique and personal experience into how it creatively trained and worked with a significant cohort of frontline clinicians to embed CAMS into a whole-system suicide risk assessment and treatment process. A major component of this is the pathway whereby those identified as having risk are offered comprehensive treatment and therapy, with robust follow-up and where clinicians received consultations as well as effective supervision. The process ensured clinicians felt confident and indeed competent to work with suicide risk, and knew what to do as their expertise increased through utilising CAMS for a range of risk variables and their management.

CAMS Care UK will offer its experience on how to design effective and safe care pathways that are a bespoke fit and meet the organisation’s specific needs. This includes training each group of front line staff on how to mitigate the risk issues they encounter in their work, but also offering its customers access to the experience and impact of those who have already gone through the process. Such links with other providers in the UK allow for a network of peer support, which also informs the refinement of individual packages depending on the needs of each customer, and further tailoring the programme for your particular area.

Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality

What is CAMS?

CAMS is an evidence based, suicide-focused treatment framework backed by 30 years of clinical research and 5 randomised controlled trials.

THE EVIDENCE BASE

Suicide Statistics & Trends

Rates of suicide are reaching unprecedented levels, affecting lives across the world. It’s our mission to drive change through training and organisational enablement. Learn more about current suicide statistics and trends below.

Every 40 seconds someone in the world dies by suicide, yet very few clinicians are trained to work with suicidal people using evidence-based treatments.

The suicide rate in the UK has remained at around 10 per 100,000 people for the past 30 years, equating to 5,224 deaths in England and Wales in 2020; three quarters of these individuals were male

For every death by suicide, there are around 200 people that have had thoughts of suicide.

Many more people die by suicide each year than in road traffic accidents yet the funding for suicide prevention is extremely sparse in comparison to the latter.

Suicide and injury or poisoning of undetermined intent was the leading cause of death for both males and females in the 20-34 year age group for all years between 2001 and 2018.

Why CAMS-care is valuable

The CAMS framework is built on a foundation of value, with the goal of enabling individual clinicians and entire organisations to gain knowledge and experience affordably and quickly.

Evidence-based

CAMS is an assessment and treatment framework for suicidal patients that has been repeatedly proven to be effective in multiple randomised controlled clinical trials around the world in reducing suicidal ideation and increasing hope.

Affordable training

There are multiple training elements for all types of learners starting at just £37.99. Becoming CAMS TRAINED is extremely affordable for individuals. groups and organisations. The CAMS TRAINED designation involves watching the CAMS foundational video, attending a day of role-play training, and engaging in four supervision calls making a provider fully capable of using CAMS with adherence.

Treatment for the largest population of suicidal people

Every 40 seconds someone in the world dies by suicide (World Health Organisation; WHO, 2019), yet there are few evidence-based treatments with demonstrated efficacy for the reduction of suicidal behaviours. Clinical trial evidence shows that CAMS is the most effective treatment available for suicidal ideators with promising evidence for effectively treating suicide attempts and self-harm behaviours as well.

Cost-effective suicide focused care

CAMS is designed to be a cost-effective outpatient treatment that may be used to avert expensive inpatient hospital stays while safely treating suicidal risk outside a hospital setting. Two research studies have shown that CAMS can significantly reduce visits to emergency departments thereby creating additional healthcare cost savings.

Easy to learn and quick to implement

In contrast to other suicide-focused interventions, CAMS is remarkably easy to learn. In a recent clinical trial with suicidal US Soldiers, providers became adherent to CAMS with their first patient in four sessions. Mastery of the approach was largely achieved by their third CAMS patient. Thus, a clinician or a mental health treatment centre can effectively use and master the CAMS framework quite quickly.

Common language and reduced staff turnover

The CAMS framework and the Suicide Status Form provide a uniform approach for clinicians using the protocol allowing cases to be transferred across clinical services without losing patient continuity. This gives groups of clinicians a shared language and a team approach to suicide treatment and prevention potentially leading to less staff turnover and decreasing stress in the work environment.

Implementing and using CAMS

CAMS is a therapeutic framework for suicide-specific assessment and treatment of a patient’s suicidal risk. The flexible CAMS approach makes it effective across theoretical orientations and disciplines for a wide range of suicidal patients in various treatment settings and treatment modalities.

INDIVIDUALS

Learn CAMS from the source. All elements of CAMS training are available online for individuals including attending a role-play training and supervision calls where you can ask questions or discuss cases when you are using CAMS to treat your patients.

GROUP

Learn CAMS from the source. CAMS trainings for groups incorporates the 4 components of CAMS Foundational Training: CAMS Book, CAMS Online Video Course, On-site Role-Play Training and CAMS supervision calls. We work closely with groups to develop a flexible approach to meet your goals.

Application of CAMS

CAMS is a flexible approach that can be used across theoretical orientations and disciplines for a wide range of suicidal patients across treatment settings and different treatment modalities.