There is tension within Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) assessments between the richness of differing practitioner's perspectives and maintaining a basic level of assessment that is acceptable to all disciplines. Standardized assessments are mandatory in research, yet are rarely applied systematically across CAMHS.The use of standardized assessments in routine practice might aid the allocation of families to the practitioners best able to meet their needs and free up time for intervention. However, practitioners' attitudes towards standardized assessment will dictate the success of such an approach. Fifty practitioners working in two CAMHS completed semi-structured interviews that explored their attitudes towards the use of standardized assessments in clinical practice, which were analysed using thematic analysis. Practitioners could identify both advantages and disadvantages of the routine use of standardized assessment. While they valued standardization, opportunities for service organization and increased information, some expressed concerns related to the choice, accuracy and influence of measures, as well as labelling. Almost one-third complained about their lack of pre-registration training in working with children, let alone their assessment. Practitioners, clinicians and policy makers need to consider these issues if they wish to introduce standardized assessments into routine practice. Senior staff need to be aware how unskilled some junior practitioners feel when they start working in CAMHS and offer appropriate support and supervision.

Purpose -There is little research addressing the delivery of training for health professionals who are interested in using cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT) techniques as an adjunct to their current role. This paper describes the establishment and evaluation of a CBT training course to develop CBT skills in staff working with people with intellectual disabilities in Trust healthcare settings. The course would enable staff to learn how they could incorporate these skills into their daily practice to help them understand and work more effectively with people with intellectual disabilities. Design/methodology/approach -A CBT training course was designed to teach staff the use of a number of basic and specific CBT techniques and principles that staff could use within their current roles. Specific issues in relation to people with intellectual disabilities were included, e.g. understanding cognitive deficits as well as cognitive distortions. The course ran for six sessions on a fortnightly basis, followed by a twomonth follow-up session. Participants completed a pre-and post-assessment questionnaire and kept a reflective diary. Findings -The training clearly focused on teaching skills that were feasible for staff to use in their own work settings. The evaluations, especially from the reflective diaries and the post-course questionnaires clearly demonstrated that this aim was achieved. Originality/value -This was a pilot study as there has been no previously published evidence of using this approach within intellectual disabilities services. A further training course has been planned to continue evaluating the effectiveness of this approach.