Why is it so difficult to get MH help for teenagers?

[ihatethecold]

AIBU. If my dd had a broken arm the health service would fix it.
They wouldn’t say we will try help you but it willl take 6 months, sorry about that. Or if you have money you can try find and find the help yourself.

It’s so frustrating. 18 week wait to get an assessment, the school won’t do an educational psychologist assessment until she has been seen by Camhs.
We are 10 weeks into the GP referral.

My dd is not getting any better, every day we are sticking a plaster on her mh issues.

This has been our life for over a year now. My poor DD is so tired.
It’s heartbreaking that kids are not being treated very quickly. 😔

Having been through it ourselves, the cynic in me thinks they stretch it out until the person affected is over 18, and therefore out of CAMHS remit.

Possibly. She’s 14 though.

Because this government have cut funding for EVERYTHING. Loads of services are having to manage with fewer and fewer staff and less and less money.

Because CAMHS are overrun with referrals for people who don’t have mental health issues therefore delaying the process for those who do.

And there are few other services to help due to the cuts.

Government cuts. Don’t vote Conservative. Then again, I don’t have much faith in any political party to give this country the radical overhaul to mental health services that we so desperately need.

Can you afford for a private Ed psych to go in if you think that may help?

It’s no better for younger children either ds is known to CAMHs but was given an “open discharge” about 6 months back - now we are in an 18 week wait to get him seen again (he is 8)

Lack of funding!! My dd is finally under CAMHS but it's taken years of waiting lists!

It's an unseen illness, the funding into the whole mental health service is woe full considering 1 in 4 people in the UK suffer each year.

They only spend 11bn in total on it.

Compare that to the 61bn spent on obesity with the same 1 in 4 sufferer.

And that’s speaking someone who was able to access services. Even in an adolescent inpatient facility, cuts to funding meant that it was literally just a ‘holding centre’ for a psychiatric assessment to take place, rather than offering any kind of therapeutic services. Nurses are scarce, psychiatrists are available perhaps once a week and community treatment teams are vastly overstretched, meaning that discharged patients rarely get adequate aftercare.

YANBU!!

It's horrific. I fill with anger whenever I hear someone mention them.

While funding is clearly an issue, it's no excuse that once you're 'in' you don't get treated much better personal experience.

I could cry. I’m so fed up battling every day to get her through the school day.
The school have been supportive in the past but they don’t know what else to do.
She’s not in crisis or self harming thankfully but the strain on everyone is horrid.

I’d like to get her seen privately and did a thread the other day asking for advice on this.
I’ve called/emailed a few people last Friday and heard nothing back. It’s so disheartening.

There is a young boy locally who after spending about 8 weeks on a “physical” health ward at alder hey while waiting for a paediatric mental health bed to come free (therefore not getting any useful help but not safe enough to go home) finally got a bed about 200 miles away.

Mental health services are massively underfunded in generally but paediatric mental health is even worse and sadly I do think that comes in part from a bit of head in the sand and not liking to think about children struggling in that way meaning worries aren’t listened to until it’s at crisis point

CAMHS is massively, massively underfunded unfortunately. There are so many teenagers needing help and not nearly enough staff.

Where will it end up?
It can’t go on like this. It’s so unfair on these kids.

Sad to say from very long bitter experience you are in a queue for a queue

When you get a diagnosis you then join the next queue for treatment

we’ve just waited 14 months for cbt with a severe and complex case and have spent 6 years being shunted round their system without actual treatment for dd 15

And as a retired nurse I and more able than some to negotiate the system

I don’t know Op, but it’s ridiculous. Young people need help immediately not years down the line. It’s disgusting.

Our local camhs have shut their books for new referrals for the next 6 months apart from crisis cases (basically a child will only be accepted if they are experiencing psychosis or are actively suicidal). That means no new assessments for asd or ADHD, or for any sort or mental health treatment for those before they hit crisis point. They simply don't have the staff (staff leave and they cannot get replacements) and they are overwhelmed with referrals. Schools are being expected to step in, but we are not trained mental health professionals and can't provide any sort of meaningful help. It's feels really hopeless right now.

How is this allowed to happen?
The fall out from this will be huge over the next 10 years.

Mental health services generally are under-funded, CAMHS seems to be even more so.

Some of the stories I've heard are absolutely heartbreaking.

Services are massively underfunded and the incidence of mental health problems in young people is increasing like mad.
I think we need a two pronged approach- funding for services and addressing the reasons why so many young people are developing mental health issues.
Pressure from school to get good exam results was a big one for my dd 😔

I would advise anyone who can possibly afford to to seek treatment privately for their child as services are pretty much non existent in reality.

You could ask for support from your local children and families service, in the interim?
Which county are you in?

(Not being nosy, it's my job to help parents like you find a service to help.)

I’m in Cambridgeshire.
I’ve contacted a newly set up service this week called CHUMs.
I’m hoping they will get back to me.

CAMHS only have the money / staff / resources to treat crisis cases quickly - everyone else has to wait.

I've had 2 DCs under CAMHS. One had appalling treatment - in a queue for a queue; lost paperwork several times; doctors going off sick for extended periods so his wait was extended even more. Meanwhile at school he was barely hanging on and at home it was so awful I had to quit my job to deal with it.

The other had the most excellent treatment - GP faxed over a referral to CAMHS whilst we were in the room with her and we had an appointment 24hrs later. Within 48hrs he'd been assessed by a paediatric psychiatric consultant and was prescribed medication and had CBT/counselling scheduled. The difference? DC2 was in a really, really critical situation. I have no doubt that those 48hrs saved his life.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have paid for private help for DC1 sooner. In our area there is a charity for teenagers in crisis where counsellors provide their services and you just give what you can. They've been enormously helpful over the years.

Very simply, right wing governments believe the State should pay for less, left wing governments believe the state should pay for more. For 10 years the country has voted in conservatives. They beliebvr in shrinking the State, and was specially the NHS which they would like to eventually replace with an insurance system like America has. This means they have not made money available for teenage mental health problems. The less money there is, the slower the service.