Aspire

• What happens when you are referred?
• What happens at an Aspire initial assessment?
• What happens after your assessment?
• What happens if I am offered up to three years of support?
• What happens if I am offered an extended assessment?
• What happens if I am offered support on the Aspire At Risk Mental State (ARMS) Pathway?

What happens when you are referred?

When you are referred to us, members of the team will aim to meet with you within 2 weeks to discuss your mental health.

Sometimes it is helpful to meet more than once. As we are a specialist service, we need to ensure that our support is right for you.

You can usually decide where we meet. We suggest that it is a private place where you feel able to talk openly. You can bring a family member or friend with you to this appointment if you would like.

We understand that talking about your mental health can be difficult so if there are ways that we can make this easier for you please let us know.

What happens at an Aspire initial assessment?

We ask about your mental health experiences using an assessment tool called a CAARMS (Comprehensive Assessment of At-Risk Mental State).

This sounds complicated, but what it means for you is that we will ask you a set of questions about what you are experiencing and how this affects you day to day.

There are no right or wrong answers; the tool is used by us to help us to think in a structured way and makes sure we don’t miss things. We will make notes during the assessment so that we can remember the detail of what you have said.

If you would like more information about the CAARMS tool please ask a member of the team.

What happens after your assessment?

After we have met with you, we will discuss the assessment as a team and determine if your experiences would be best supported by our specialist team. We will then write to you summarising our assessment and make one of the following recommendations:

• That you are offered support from Aspire for up to three years
• That you are offered supported on the Aspire ARMS Pathway.
• That you are offered a period of extended assessment by Aspire (please see below)
• Or we will make suggestions for different support that you can access from other services that we think might be most helpful for you.

What happens if I am offered up to three years of support?

If you are supported by Aspire you will be allocated a worker known as a care coordinator. Please request the ‘my support’ leaflet for further details on what we offer and how we will coordinate this care

What happens if I am offered an extended assessment?

Sometimes it can be difficult to determine if you are experiencing psychosis as mental health difficulties are different for everyone. Having a period of extended assessment means that you will be allocated a worker (care coordinator) from the team who will meet with you for up to 3 months to explore your experiences further. After 3 months we will either offer to support you for the remainder of up to 3 years of support or recommend support from other services that we think might be more helpful for you.

What happens if I am offered support on the Aspire At Risk Mental State (ARMS) Pathway?

If it is felt that your experiences are not indicative of a First Episode of Psychosis you may be offered support support on Aspire’s At Risk Mental State Pathway.