AMBIT is powerfully influenced by ideas of community, informed by SystemsTheory, and by the fact that Mentalization is just as dependent upon the mentalizer's access to trusted others as it is upon any kind of "inner strength".

In one sense an AMBIT-influenced intervention is really about using the Community of Practice and the well-connected Team around the Worker to support the development of stronger, more supportive community relationships around the client; these are likely to be around much longer, and possibly to be much more influential upon our clients than we as workers are.

The Community around the worker

See Keyworker well-connected to wider team

See Community of Practice

See AMBIT programme

The Community around the client

See Working with the Social Ecology

See Scaffolding existing relationships

One important principle in the Keyworker's integrative work is to link the client family with resources in the community, either building on what is already there, or creating new relationships. The community is multi-layered, but an important element of it is the group of Experts By Experience and their families, who are able to contribute in unique ways to supporting the young person and family during and after their time of acute crisis.

They, like the KW, have the experience of having to integrate the different aspects of the intervention, and are experts both in their own past difficulties and in how the intervention could be helpful in pulling together better support for the YP currently in severe difficulties. The past users and their families will be involved at both the level of practical mentoring and advising of the young person and the family, and at the level of participating in planning and managing the service.