Adult Camberwell Assessment of Need (CAN) training
Do you need to be trained to use the adult CAN, either clinically or in research?
No. The Camberwell Assessment of Need (CAN) is designed to be used by mental health professionals without any formal training. However, there are several reasons you may want to train staff:
- Training will increase inter-rater reliability of ratings
- Training will help clinical staff to understand that the purpose of the assessment is to be helpful to the service user, not just to record the scores
- Training will support implementation. Often, CAN is introduced into clinical services with insufficient attention being paid to contextual issues – ‘how does CAN link with our clinical information system?’, what’s the point of doing it?’ and ‘how will the data be used?’. Many clinical staff may be nervous and unsure, leading to covert sabotage through high non-completion rates
Is there a training programme for the adult CAN, and if so, is it appropriate for our needs?
The adult CAN book contains a training programme for CAN-R, the most comprehensive version of CAN. Members of staff who are familiar with using CAN may use the programme to train colleagues. If your service is using CANSAS or CAN-C, then the training programme should be adapted accordingly (by omitting some sections). However, staff who are intending to use CANSAS or CANSAS-P would benefit from first looking through CAN-R as this questionnaire provides a better flavour of exactly what each domain is assessing.
Is training and consultation from an external expert possible?
Yes. Email researchintorecovery@nottingham.ac.uk to find out about bespoke training.