The Catkin Centre & Sunflower House

We aim to improve our community and mental health provision, by building a community cluster hub featuring two adjoined buildings:

• The Catkin Centre - an Outpatients Centre that will support children with a range of mental health, neurodevelopment conditions, learning disabilities and Health Psychology, acting as a bridge between Hospital and Home. 
• Sunflower House - a purpose-built Tier 4 children’s inpatient Mental Health Unit. It comprises of a 12-bed inpatient mental health unit for children aged 5-13 with the most challenging mental health conditions. 

Our Community and Mental Health Division includes our:

• Children’s Community Nursing Team
• Community Matrons
• Community Therapies
• Neurodevelopmental Community Paediatrics
• ASD and ADHD services
• Learning Disabilities Team
• Complex Discharge Team
• Transition Service
• Safeguarding Services
• Rainbow Centre
• Specialist Community Mental Health Services including locality mental health services
• Eating Disorders
• Crisis Care Team
• Mental Health in Schools Teams and Tier 4 Children’s Inpatient Unit
• Outpatients
• Booking and Scheduling
• Phlebotomy and Homecare

Acting as a hub, the Catkin Centre and Sunflower House will enable Alder Hey to meet the needs of families by supporting the delivery of the children’s integrated model of care, a model signed up to by all partners in children’s services in 2016. This integrated model is focussed on the delivery of care close to home where possible and only centralised when necessary.

The model on the right describes where and how need should be met. The new buildings will provide the base for staff and be the place where the specialist and intensive care is delivered. This does not distract from the aim of delivering care in the community, as children will have first assessment, clinical work up and a treatment plan developed which then enables and supports the plan being delivered closer to home in local health centre/clinics and schools.

Supporting more children and young people with their mental health

Our most vulnerable children facing the most challenging mental health crises are currently cared for at our Tier 4 children’s mental health inpatient unit - ‘Dewi Jones’ located 30 minutes’ drive away from Alder Hey’s main campus.

Our Inpatient Unit is one of only six in the country that are dedicated to children a’s mental health (under age 13 years). Our aim is to change our model of care to become more outpatient focused so that we can see more children but they will be supported to remain at home with their families. . 

Through a range of professionals including specialist clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, mental health workers, occupational therapists, art and music therapists and mental health nurses, we support patients facing a huge range of difficulties, including: 

• Anxiety Disorders
• Eating Disorders
• Autism Spectrum Disorders
• Depression
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders
• Psychosis
• Self-Harm
• Learning Disabilities
• Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Find out more about how our mental health services have helped children and young people. (Video courtesy of BBC North West)