Ive come to the conclusion that people in this profession are winging it.

[ihatethecold]

Mental health workers, especially people involved in any way, shape or form with helping children/ teens with MH issues.
It's an absolute travesty.
Right across the board I am shocked at how they really don't seem to know how to help young people.

Gp services that don't have a clue so won't prescribe anything and just refer you to a service that is so overstretched your child has to be practically dying before they will help them.
They genuinely don't know how to help.

Camhs, so underfunded that you wait absolutely ages just to get an assessment, to be told they will treat your child but the waiting list is a year long. They will refer you to a psychiatrist but that takes weeks. then they forget to put the referral in!

Private therapy, now this really is a shocker. You would think if you are paying (and this really isn't cheap) you would be seen by a professional that has some solid ideas of how to treat MH issues.
Its so wishy washy. I've never felt so ripped of in my life.

Counsellors with their own agenda. Took us 6 months to realise this.

School support workers. They deal with school kids that need support because of all sorts of needs. Lovely people but they really don't get MH.

One family support worker linked to the school said that self harming was ok and children need to do it to relieve their stress. How the hell is that right?

After 18 months of trying to get help for my DD14 I have come to the conclusion that they are winging it. No one seems to have any solid ideas that will help her manage her problems

Unfortunately Ive become an expert in severe anxiety in teenagers. Ive had to so I can support her.

Its just so depressing seeing how bad the services are.

I dont want or mean to offend anyone in this line of work but it just seems to be endemic that no one really has a clue.

I'm so sorry you're going through this and without the support you need.
I've had a very different experience though - referral within days and a great cahms team that liaised seamlessly with the School and offered lots of support.
Maybe it differs from area to area?
Hope things get better for you and your daughter

Thats good to read Toomanysmallpeople.
I wish it was like that where I live

Firstly sorry you and DD are going through such a terrible time. Tbh I think we have been sold the lie so often that science (including medicine) has all the answers when half of it is guess work we kind of think scientists and medical professionals to always be right and be able to solve problems. A lot of medicine is trial and error, esp when it comes to mental health. What suits one person won’t suit another. You are probably the person that can help your DD the most. I suffer from PTSD after a traumatic birth and quite frankly all the help out there has fallen into the catergory of stating the bleeding obvious. What has helped me more than anything has been having people round me who I can talk to, and personal training (with a very sympathetic PT). I found councillors by and large to try and push their thoughts on me rather than listening

I appreciate you are struggling but as a generalisation I think that's pretty offensive to all the people who trained and work hard in underfunded, underpaid, under resourced and under immense stress roles and do their best with the bad hand they are given.

When the services don't exist because of cutbacks and lack of funding, thats not the fault of the people who have to tell you they don't exist. When you have a child with complex problems its not everyone else fault that they can't fix it.

I'm really sorry for your troubles and I hope you get some support.

The counselling/psychotherapy professions in the U.K. can be very hit or miss in terms of training. Someone can study for a year, earn a post grad diploma and call themselves a counsellor or they might have 10 years plus in specialist training or higher education - there’s no minimum training required. I tend to pay close attention to training (formal eg degree, masters etc) and experience if I’m looking for someone.

The reality is funding for mental health service is so poor that too many people fall through the gaps.

I'm sorry you are having a tough time but that is incredibly rude and offensive. These services are understaffed and underfunded . Most people who remain trying to work in these services are skilled and dedicated but are fighting a losing battle. Oh and the 'clueless' GPs are NOT PERMITTED to initiate psychiatric medication including antidepressants to under 18 due to prescribing regulations, only to continue medication initiated by a psychiatrist. I get how hard it is. I have a child with mental health issues but insulting every professional is not going to help anyone.

I'm very sorry you're struggling to get help for your daughter. It must be incredibly frustrating. That said, I think you're making a lot of sweeping generalisations and directing your frustrations at the wrong people. CAMHS waiting lists being ridiculously long (which they are) doesn't mean the staff don't know what they're doing. They know how to help young people, they want to provide timely and effective therapy, but they're working in a system that constantly puts barriers in the way and doesn't allow them to. Demand for the services you are talking about has rocketed and yet funding has fallen, that's not the fault of staff working in the system. As for the GP, it's perfectly reasonable that they're reluctant to prescribe psychotropic medication to children. There are certain risks that come with these medications and GP's are not experts in child psychiatry. Their role when dealing with significant child and adolescent mental health issues is to refer young people to specialist mental health services, not to manage the situation themselves. Again, it's not the fault of your GP that those services are overstretched.

I think it's interesting that you seem to have seen several professionals (GP, CAMHS clinicians, private therapist, counsellor, support worker etc) who apparently haven't had the first clue about mental health despite their training and years of experience but declare yourself an "expert". I wonder how you've been able to access so much information about mental health that all these professionals have been completely unaware of? When I worked in children's mental health services I experienced a lot of parents who felt that they were experts and would demand (often very aggressively) treatments/therapies etc that are actually not clinically proven to be effective for their child's particular difficulties and could in some cases be unsafe or make the situation worse. I also came into contact with a lot of parents who expected CAMHS to "fix" their child's problems (usually very complex problems that had become deeply entrenched over many years) and decided we were "useless" and "winging it" if we failed to do so overnight.

I'm sorry to say your post has reminded me why I left NHS mental health services. It is thankless and utterly soul-destroying being blamed incessantly for problems with the system that are completely beyond your control.

So as a GP, you'd rather I prescribe medication that often doesn't work in this age group and is potentially dangerous than refer on appropriately? Interesting viewpoint. Presumably you'll defend me at the GMC when it goes wrong. We are struggling in a system that is being systematically defunded. Blame Jeremy *unt, not the GP who is stuck with nowhere to refer to because all the MH services are defunded.

No I am sorry I am just going to say that I cant stand this ideology anymore

What ideology is that?

The OP is entitled to complain here
Of course she is. She has done. But not to do it without response, which she clearly wants because she posted it for responses. In aibu no less, so looking for debate as well.

I can only go from my own experiences, which is that it took a while to find the right level of treatment - however that is because my GP and therapists only have a finite amount of resources to go round and need to ration responsibly. It's understandable that they tried me on the basic therapy and cheaper 'one size fits all' type meds before moving me up the ladder onto something more specialist - 90% of people would have responded to the initial cheaper treatment but I'm one of the unlucky ones.

I do find that people's expectations are higher because of the internet though - I'm always astonished when I hear about people 'fighting' for a particular diagnosis after diagnosing themselves through google, rather than listening to specialists with 15+ years specialist experience in the subject.

I think it's interesting that you seem to have seen several professionals (GP, CAMHS clinicians, private therapist, counsellor, support worker etc) who apparently haven't had the first clue about mental health despite their training and years of experience but declare yourself an "expert"

There's just no need for this. If the op and her child has run the gamut of mh resources and spat out the other end with no help I can see how she would feel this way. I don't see why she should have to tip-toe around fragile egos in saying as much.

The OP is entitled to complain here

Absolutely. I don't think anyone is disputing that. There is a big difference between complaining about having to wait a year to access treatment (which is appalling and should be a national scandal) and declaring said waiting list is evidence that all MH professionals are clueless.

It's all very well feeling upset and saying there are reasons it is the way it is, but when you're in a mental health crisis you don't have the resources to cope or just feel kindly about it.

I agree with the OP, and I live in a relatively wealthy area. I almost lost my husband due to this incompetence despite him literally crying out for help, it's a combination of sheer luck and the fact that he had me that kept him here.

In my experience with CAMHS (two DC over the past 8 years), the hardest part of dealing with them is the incompetency of some staff - failure to refer onwards, poor record keeping, blatant lying about what they have or have not done, failure to communicate properly with families and other organisations. I'm not sure that can all be excused as being caused by a lack of funds.

It must be awful to be in your position, OP, and my heart goes out to you.
Much of what you say is about waiting lists. That's not about people not knowing how to do their jobs, but about them not having the adequate resources to do it well.
GP's can only refer on. As GP's they know a lot about a lot. They are not, however, MH professionals so can not diagnose and treat as one.
Counselling is usually never what people expect. I personally have had really disappointing experiences with counselling, but have not written off the possibility of finding one that is right for me and my needs.
I have seen this from all sides, as referrer, client and MH professional. At the moment I am trying to refer people into the system, and the single most pertinent issue is funding. That's where your anger needs to be directed. Not at professionals who have worked hard to get their qualifications and who every day have the frankly thankless task of trying to do their jobs with zero resources.

One of my relatives was referred to the local CAMHS and they received a letter to say the referral had been received but that the service had no staff and they would get in touch when they had!!!

How can the people working for CAHMS be held responsible for the funding cuts: do you think they enjoy an impossible workload? Seems rather unfair to call that "winging it"?

I've been through this with a severely anxious teenager at a time when CAHMS were far better resourced and even so it takes time to find the treatment that works for one particular child.

Medication is potentially very risky as it can lead to suicides in young people, so they will want to try everything else first. (Have had first hand experience of the wrong choice of medication leading to confused and dangerous behaviour).

On the other hand many anxious teenagers are unable to engage with treatment without medication. And the right medication for that particular person can make a huge positive difference. So it's a delicate balance which doctors have to negotiate as best they can, because they will be held to blame if things go seriously wrong.

And the therapy that works wonders for one teen may be useless for another.

It took us many years for dd to get more or less back on her feet, and even so we (and she) have had to accept that she will probably never get well: the best she can hope for is for her condition to be manageable. But she is alive, and she is able to make a life for herself. She has come off the medication but is beginning to realise she needs to go back on it. She finds the therapy techniques she was taught helpful and is still using them 5 years on.

I work within camhs and have also used camhs myself as a child.
I can completely relate to what you are saying. I come home from work every day exasperated with the whole system.
There are too many people in camhs at the top making bad descisions and not enough people on the ground. It’s increasingly harder to have our voice heard and when the good nurses/therapists etc start to leave you lose the faith. I feel so strongly that I want to provide a good service to my patients but it is becoming impossible. I am often in tears about it.
You are right when you say you are becoming an expert by living through it. Supportive families like yourselves are the key to recovery but it’s frustrating when the professionals aren’t meeting you halfway.

I have had appalling experiences at Relate. They have no clue how to identify an abusive partner. I was told to shut up and let him speak. I did. I never actually was asked to speak again. Later on he beat me up.
He kept beating me up.
He became addicted to counselling and every time he came home he... yes you guessed it. Beat me up.
My sincere apologies to all the excellent counsellors- this is just my experience.
I probably need counselling to get over the counselling.

Ihatethecold Sadly adult MH services are getting that way now. I have had some good care and bad over the years I have been in services. Lately it has been abysmal! My last CPN made me feel like I was faking my symptoms even though I have had a confirmed diagnosis for years.

Yanbu OP. The service in our area got a shit cqc inspection for their mental health provision. Some of the opinions I've come across personally are outdated, ignorant and frankly dangerous. Opinions from professionals.

You very rarely hear anything positive thing about camhs.

GRUMBYMUMBY I am so sorry. I relate to some of what you posted- in my case it wasn't an abusive partner but an abusive parent. The last MH worker I had basically was sceptical about the fact that my issues with personality disorder could have anything to do with what my father did to me. I know I can't say all my issues were caused by abuse but some of my symptoms are trauma related. But no, I just have a "personality disorder" meaning I am a drama queen and an attention seeking liar.

I think I am going to need counselling to recover from the counselling Yes. That is how I was left feeling too.

I am sorry if I have offended anyone, I really am.
I am living a very frustrated life right now watching my Dd losing her childhood.
I know why the Gp can't prescribe. It has been explained to me. I do get they are not trained in MH but with so many people now presenting with Mh issues would it not make sense to have someone who works there that understands the system?

I will never claim to be an expert above somebody that has spent years training to become a MH professional but as a parent you do get to see and witness what the system is like and it is failing massively.

I have never suggested any type of treatment for my DD when we have had an assessment but I do know I have spent an absolute fortune privately and not seen any improvement.
She doesn't have a complex MH issue but it is affecting her life and her education.
Over the space of 18 months we have paid for her to see a CBT therapist with qualifications coming out of her ears.

A Counsellor who seemed to gel with my dd but then her own agenda started to creep in.

Now she is seeing a child psychologist who is frankly away with the fairies.

What do I do next?

GRUMBYMUMBY It makes me mad to see how manipulative abusers can be and how they manage to get therapists and counsellors on their side.

I really hope you get the healing you need and deserve.