HoNOSI Glossary V1.0

The Health of the Nation Outcome Scales for Infants (HoNOSI) has been developed as a routine outcome measure to support clinicians who work to improve the emotional and social well-being of infants and young children in the 0 - 3 year old age group (i.e. 0-47 months). There is a broad range of development within this age band and where appropriate, the HoNOSI attempts to provide guidance for rating both those at the younger and those at the upper end of the age band.

The HoNOSI has been developed for use by clinicians working both in specialist perinatal and infant mental health units and for those who see infants and young children in child and adolescent mental health service settings. It is expected that knowledge of development and the impact of the early years on later development is central to all clinicians working with infants, pre-schoolers, children and adolescents although specialist infant mental health and generalist child and adolescent mental health service staff may have differing levels of familiarity and specialist knowledge. While the prime audience are clinicians within the specialist mental health sector (both infant and CAMHS), it is possible that HoNOSI may also be of use to clinicians in the primary mental health sector.

For clinicians, the HoNOSI aims to:

• inform treatment decisions by highlighting unexpected progress or deterioration for infants/young children;
• document the progress of the infant/young child and make overt changes, and;
• facilitate discussion of infants and young children’s presentation among clinicians.

Services might also use the HoNOSI as an adjunct to:

• describing program or service effectiveness, and;
• contributing to examining the local implementation of evidence based treatments.

This glossary provides the HoNOSI, key principles for rating the HoNOSI and specific information on how to rate each point on each item.