Child and Adolescent Mental Health service (CAMHS)
About the service
We help children and young people in the local area who may be having problems. You may feel very upset or angry, you may be behaving in unusual ways or have family/friends or carers that are worried about you.
We support children and young people from pre-school years up to aged 16 (or 18 if still in school) where there are severe and long standing concerns about emotional wellbeing and behaviours.
How to access
Referrals to CAMHS are accepted from a variety of health professions including GPs and hospital doctors (if urgent assessment is required) as well as school nurses and health visitors. The specialist CAMHS referral form is available in the tabs below.
If you think it would help to talk to someone at CAMHS, you (or your parent or the person that looks after you) will need to speak to someone like your doctor or school nurse.
How to find us
We have two main sites which are below.
Even though our friendly staff are based here, if you need to come to CAMHS you don’t always have to come to these two places. If you would prefer, we can try and arrange to come to you, either at school or at your local health centre for example.
Use the tabs below to explore this section further.
What to expect
As a young person, you may notice lots of changes as you grow up. While many of these changes can be fun and exciting, you might find some strange, confusing or maybe even scary too.
We understand that the way you feel, behave or think can sometimes be very worrying. That’s why we have specially trained staff who will spend time with you to help you feel better. We can also work with your family, or those that care for you, to give them advice and support and help them understand how you might be feeling.
This service is known as our Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, but because that’s a bit of a mouthful, we call it CAMHS.
There’s so much stuff to tell you about CAMHS we’ve broken it up into little sections to make it easier to understand.
The videos below tell you a little bit about two people’s experience with the service.
As a parent or carer of a young child or adolescent, you may have serious concerns about their emotional well-being and behaviours.
Our specially trained staff at CAMHS (child and adolescent mental health service) will work with you and your child to tackle your concerns. As all families or young people are different, our response will depend on your particular needs. We work in a variety of ways including family work, individual therapy, parent therapy, group therapy and creative therapies.
We offer a wide range of services to help children and young people overcome problems such as:
Low mood and anxiety
Eating disorders
School refusal in the context of moderate to severe mental health needs
Developmental difficulties
Having unusual experiences such as hearing voices or experiencing paranoia
Obsessive compulsive behaviours
Attachment difficulties
FAQ's
Mental health is to do with how we all feel, behave and think. Sometimes we feel happy and smiley, but other times we might feel sad, upset, angry or scared.
Not many people talk about mental health problems so don’t be surprised if this is the first time you’ve heard of them. But if we’re honest, they’re actually quite common.
Mental health problems are ok every now and again, but if they happen a lot of the time and if you feel like you are finding it hard to cope, you might need some help to make your mental health better.
CAMHS helps young people in a number of ways. We will talk with you (and usually with your parents or carers as well). We will ask questions about your worries and how you would like things to be different. We will ask about your family and how things are at home or at school. We will then think together with you about how we can help.
We help young people who may be:
feeling very sad or anxious
finding themselves getting very angry all the time
having strange or scary thoughts
feeling very unhappy about the way they look
finding it hard to manage their emotions
You will initially be offered an assessment and in this we will consider what further input/intervention might be useful for you.
We offer a range of interventions, including skills to recognise and manage your emotions, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Family Therapy, Creative Therapies and Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy.
Some children and young people might want to consider medication to help support them further.
If you are worried about your thoughts or feelings, or how you are behaving, don’t be afraid to tell somebody. You might want to talk to your mum and dad, or your carer, teacher or doctor for example. They might suggest you speak to somebody at CAMHS to try and get to the bottom of how you feel.
At CAMHS we will work together with you to try and make a difference. If it doesn’t help, then we will think with you or your parents or carers about what to do next.
We can offer face to face appointments, online/telephone appointments, and can provide interpreters when needed.
You will be sent appointment letters, or be contacted by a CAMHS clinician to arrange appointments. Please ensure you let us know if your address or telephone number changes. We can provide translated letters or in any other accessible formats should you require this, please let us know. If you cannot make an appointment, please let us know as soon as possible by contacting Single Point of Access.
Due to the demand on the service and to ensure we can provide the best service with the resources we have, we have to follow a strict was not brought policy. This means that if you do not attend 2 appointments and we do not hear from you regarding the reasons for this, you will be discharged from the service.
Whenever somebody gets help from a doctor, even if it’s just for a cold, the fact that you have been, and what you and your doctor discuss, is kept private. This is the same here at CAMHS.
When you first come to see someone at CAMHS you will be asked who you do and do not want to be told things about your time at our service. What you tell your CAMHS worker is private and won’t be shared with anyone else unless they are worried about your safety or someone else’s safety.
Keeping information private between you and your CAMHS worker is also known as ‘confidentiality’. Ask your CAMHS worker about our confidentiality rules if you want to know more.
It is important to know that CAMHS clinicians do have to keep a written record of their involvement with you in your clinical file. This will only be accessed by those with the authority to access this. You can also request a copy of your clinical record through our Access to Records team.
If you are in immediate danger, you should call 999.
If you require urgent mental health support, 24/7, please contact our all age First Response Service via 0800 952 1181 option 2 or go through 111.
Safer Spaces provides same-day urgent mental health support for anyone aged 7 and over. They can offer support over the phone or in person. This can be accessed via First Response as above or through Guideline (open 8am – Midnight), on 0800 188 4884.
