What exactly are CAMHs supposed to treat?

[WhiteC0sm05]

Seems to be very little in our area.

It’s not a lot to ask and what I thought CAMHs was actually there for. If not they need to get rid and just let GPS refer direct to paediatricians.

They are beyond useless. We are in a TWO YEAR waiting list for dd to see a specialist. Yet, if you go the office, it is practically empty. A huge building with over 20 (yes I counted) empty rooms at any given time.

One of the largest issues is that camhs is secondary care and therefore children should be being referred to numerous other services and only the most severe being referred to camhs (hence there thresholds for being seen). Unfortunately all the services that should be utilised prior to camhs have mostly shutdown or shrunk due to no funding or being cut by government. This means camhs has become the first point of contact which is was never supposed to be and therefore cant cope with. That's not to say services arent shocking, but they very much reflect adult secondary mental health care too >.< (all adult secondary care therapy has been cancelled due to lockdown and people put back onto the bottom of waiting lists after being seen after YEARS of waiting for only 1 or 2 sessions. Only getting a maximum of 6 sessions regardless how severe the need is and therapists are no longer able to increase sessions if needed. 1 psychiatrist for my entire county with a population of 368000+, and childrens services arent much better as previously to services being cut down the psychiatrists often worked both adults and childrens services, so as adults have lost services so has childrens. Due to the post lockdown changes that the government are looking for forcing on mental health teams many the therapist(s) in my county are also looking at potentially being forced out of their jobs, with no funding to replace them).

I feel mental health on a whole has been abandoned by the government for everyone from children to the elderly and services have been stripped back so much that they might as well not exist.

I accessed camhs as a child so over 15+ years ago and although I was able to get seen with much more ease (although I was also referred to be primary services first before being referred to camhs), they were still woefully unprepared to deal with certain situations. Which lead to me being diagnosed with ASD, ADHD, MDD and GAD in my twenties, rather then when I was a child, which if I'm honest could have potentially prevented years of trauma and persisting mental health issues that I still have to this day.

white FWIW befor the referral write down your objectives:

I want him to see a psychiatrist within three weeks - this has been going on for x time.
His needs are severe: he is depressed, suicidal, harming (whatever it is)
I expect an agreed treatment plan with agreed pathways and timescales for psychiatric review, therapy, medication , diagnosis
If not why not - please provide me with reasons - if not then where do I escalate my concerns

And then you send it in writing with your concerns to your MP and the CEO.

That’s really helpful thank you.

No someone at camhs had it and it was in bold on every apt letter, on the front door, all over the offices. No visitor was to touch an orange or anything containing orange because a member of staff could die. The same appointment letter failed to enclose the map and information sheet about CAMHS.

Kafkaesque

I wonder if Mumsnet HQ would be willing to run some kind of campaign about this, as it's an absolute sham.

^This 100%

Reading this thread is eye opening.

I pretty much deduct, if you child has anxiety or depression don't go to the GP. Try and get a private counsellor, but how do you find counsellors who can be trusted with vulnerable kids?

@TakeTennisEG precisely.
I still want to know why, if it's unsafe for a GP or CAMHS to help with a private referral, how it is any safer for a lay person to find someone off the internet.

The best they could say was they didn't know private practitioners outcomes so it wasn't safe. And parents do. Anyway it turned on its head when dd started six sessions with CAMHS and they closed her case after the first was delivered. So they didn't know the outcome. I'm still waiting for an answer four years later.

Actually, as someone who led a CAMHS team, we can recommend private practitioners (as long as we don’t personally know them), we just can’t refer to them or it would look as though the service couldn’t meet the need (which it can’t, but that can’t be made public).

I also have GPs give parents my contact details for private psychological support. Most GPs refer to CAMHS though as it’s just easier for them, rather than knowing who is qualified locally.

^ the caveat the above would be to make sure the practitioner was fully accredited by the HCPC.

Trains could you tell me what professionals work in the 'screening teams' at Camhs?

Fourteen pages in and I'm still confused on who actually would have made the decision that my child did not meet the criteria to receive the care that he needs.

It varies between the services, but normally there is an allocated team comprised of 3-4 people who work in the service who triage (can be of any training background - OT, art therapists, psychologists, team leader, etc). They then feedback to the rest of the team.

Once you reach face to face assessment stage, it would be 1-2 professionals of band 6 or above who would assess.

Thanks for replying trains.

Are art therapists suitably qualified to make decisions about whether a neurodiverse young person needs mental health support?

In any other part of medicine I would expect a referral to be screened by a doctor and for them to make the decision on whether the patient will be seen or the referral sent back to the gp.

My child has had very worrying mental health issues for 3+ years including times that he wished he was dead. He's 16 now and barely leaves the house. I'm not sure why a doctor can't screen his referral.

You can't bother the doctor with this kind of thing! 😱 Be happy that your child had the privilege to be cursorily glanced at by a bored and lazy health worker with a degree you can get onto with two C's at A level (really!) and a wodge of gum surgically attached to her tongue.

Trains are there buzz words that ensures a referral gets through? Dd's school made two referrals both were rejected. I contacted GP who said he would refer with the necessary buzz words and he could guarantee that the referral was accepted. He said the team just want to see the right words to tick the box for referral and sure enough his referral was accepted.

So it is just a tick box system? Completed by Camhs staff that don't really have the knowledge or understanding to know whether the child actually needs to be seen.

I guess that's why the letter is just signed ''the screening team' and not by an individual professional.

Punx no idea if it is a tick box but that is what the GP suggested. He said the team want the buzz words. I will ask the right questions so that my referral contains the buzz words to get it accepted.

I think it's insulting to the GP, to be honest. The GP is a highly-educated, experienced medical professional, who spends a great deal of their time dealing with mental health problems, and has evaluated the patient, concluded that their mental health problems go beyond the capabilities of a generalist and the resources of primary care, and is requesting an assessment by someone with greater expertise in that area. It's not like (except in Dobbin's area, apparently) this hasn't already been through an expert medical assessment process.

I think Ds's referral probably didn't even get as far as the tick boxes. As soon as they saw he had an autism diagnosis it would have been rejected.

Yes our CAMHS is dire for supporting children with autism if they don't meet LD CAMHS criteria. Head of CAMHS told me himself that what dd needed was provided by LD CAMHS but she couldn't have what she needed as her IQ was too high. What she could have wasn't suitable but she could have more of that if I wanted! Absolutely ridiculous and a waste of resources right there as well as large numbers of CYP left to suffer.

Yes agree with Dobbin SARs are a parents's friend. School, LA (if you have had dealings with them or school have on your behalf) and CAMHS get the requests in so as to use the content to support your EHCP request. It's quite enlightening to see what's being said behind your back whilst being assured to your face that there isn't a problem.