CAHMs therapist using trans name for DD

Therapists can’t but where I am the vast majority of autism assessments are carried out by Ed psychs (who are part of an MDT overseen by a clinician)

I’m definitely not saying that’s ideal but in a world of budget cuts and wait lists, you work with what you have.

DD13 assessment was done when she was 11 by a therapist and consultant in two parts over a few hours.

I went private because of everything said above.

She has ADHD and ASD.

If you can afford to go private, do it.

ASD is a medical diagnosis. It cannot be made by an educational psychologist nor a 'therapist'

When my son was diagnosed the speech and language therapist and paediatrician who carried out the assessment had never met him before, and haven't seen him since. What is all this rubbish about 'therapist' and 'therapeutic relationship'? It isn't therapy!

When my friends daughter was diagnosed anorexic her psychologist didn't need to agree she was fat in order to establish a healthy helpful relationship - it would have been harmful to do so.

When my niece developed OCD her therapist did not agree there were germs everywhere and she should not leave the house. To do so would have harmed my niece.

OP I would ask why they are doing this and if they say because trans identity ask for evidence from clinical trials.

There are all kinds of "wishes" a young person might have that a therapist will not respect and will in fact challenge. That's the job of the therapist and in some cases affirming such wishes would be outright malpractice.

Even if the therapist thinks it might make sense here it should be discussed with the parents.

This is just an idiotic argument.

EHCP goddamnit!

Areas vary. Some places do most ASD/dyslexia assessments through educational psychologist (funded by the council) rather than CAMHS (funded by the NHS).

ADHD can be screened for at school but then goes through the NHS because there is the option of meds and obvs and Ed Psych can neither prescribe nor monitor that (diagnosis via CAMHS and then they either stay there for the medication clinic or are discharged to community paed care for monitoring). The GP usually prescribes but under ‘shared cared’ so you need a named consultant.

these conditions often come in clusters so if you are already at CAMHS for one thing (eg ADHD) they might offer the ASD assessment there (this is often the route to ASD assessment for kids who are managing to hit or exceed minimum standards in school but struggle socially - school can’t justify allocating the assessment cost from their meagre budget so it gets deflected to the NHS. Basically it’s all about scrabbling for little pockets of funding and trying to get a kid in for assessment wherever you can… hopefully a sympathetic GP will refer when a school refuses

Which is why you really want all the records properly matching up because Christ knows you can’t give the SEN department at the council even a sliver of doubt or admin cock up if you want a kid diagnosed with SEN in their teen years to get an ECHP in place before they are 30.

In our area it's now all cases of ASD or ADHD. My DS also has dyspraxia and epilepsy so happily we see a very sensible paediatrician for all of them. He still can't remember his name!

Aargh pressed post too soon:

I wanted to finish by saying that I'm sure all of us want to help the OP. And it's not helpful giving opinions which are not based on experience in a very delicate and difficult situation.

No they don't.

Honestly if you've never had any experience of a) therapeutic intervention via CAMHS and b) an autism assessment via CAMHS, please don't advise.

You don't understand the process at all.

Lots of children ask to go by different names.

Often it correlates with some change in life like being put in care, father going to jail, mum and dad getting divorced etc or sometimes they just don’t like their name or get bullied for it.
And of course if they’re struggling with their gender.

As long as it’s not taking the mick then myself and colleagues are happy to call them by a different name.
I have many colleagues who also go by different names because they’re separated but not divorced etc.

This small act can make a massive difference to a young person and have absolutely no impact on us (apart from trying to remember it).

However, as her parent you can speak to them and say you are not happy with this.

We have dealt with parents who are very against this yet the child will self harm or try and end their own life over it.

So we ask that we compromise.

We say we’ll keep using the correct pronouns but ask the child to come up with a neutral name often a shortened version of their own name
eg Rebecca = Reby. Or Chloe = Cee Cee (not real students or names).

This can help the students as they’re allowed to be themselves at school but also let’s the parents feel more at ease.

However we cannot police what their friends call them.

But they aren’t a therapist, and they won’t be needing to build a therapeutic relationship. Rather they are (or should be) a clinician reviewing for autism

CAHMS are shit, attended there when I was a teenager afew years ago. Had anxiety and depression, and the assessment was god awful. All sessions consisted of ‘breathing’ and i shit you not, i was told to take ‘a bubble bath’ when i felt down. Match that with some sheets of ‘feelings’ and that’s the fucking service you receive. Felt like a waste of time on everyones behalf so my parents thankfully took me out of it. Had other friends and met people at uni who all fully agree CAMHS did fuck all for them, one of my female friends had a hard time with self harm, and apparently the “advice” they gave her made everything worse. If you can afford it please go private OP.

In our area camhs diagnose adhd /asd if there are mh issues if not goes to pediatrician..

My ds was diagnosed by calmhs but other thsn meds done nothing.

Very good point. Are autism/neuro issues just shunted onto CAHMS, then? Is there no dedicated service?

What if the child’s basic wishes were for everyone to agree they're massively overweight so they shouldn’t be made to eat despite being severely anorexic?

The thing is, the therapist needs to build up a therapeutic relationship with your daughter. How do they do that if they start off on a footing of not respecting your daughters wishes? All that will do is alienate your daughter and put up a barrier before they've even began.

I've never understood why SEN needs like autism and ADHD need to go through CAMHS.

It's not a mental health issue! Problem is they all approach it like it is. Hence these wishy washy type of appointments, where the core issue isn't being addressed but "thinking" and "beliefs" are. You can't ask a neurodiverse person to suddenly adopt different belief systems akin to treating OCD, phobias or depression.

Being neurodiverse does not require a therapist and counselling service.

It needs diagnosing and support on coping/managing. How to move forward, acceptance.

I genuinely feel CAMHS fails neurodiverse people.

@TheClogLady well yes somewhere on the records I would imagine that the therapist has highlighted that this is the child's preferred name which isn't the same as changing the name

Please go private if at all possible.

The same happened to us with our autistic child. It solidified an identity which she is now backtracking on, but the backtracking is made difficult by autism (rigid thinking) and CAMHS (reinforcing the trans identity).

This is such an important developmental time for your autistic child - you must keep her options open.

Thank you.
All of us want only the best for our kids, and trust those who are supposedly there to help.
The only advice I can give is trust your parental gut

Honestly the worst 4+ years of my life, but we are there now.
and definitely made worse by CAHMS

I’m so glad your daughter is safely out the other side. Well done to you (and her).

It doesn’t mean it’s overridden the legal name but it means it’s in the system somehow/somewhere. Hence the point of the thread.

poor op. What a cluster fuck of irrelevant answers this thread has been.