What exactly are CAMHs supposed to treat?

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Seems to be very little in our area.

So they don’t treat autism, SEN, depression or anxiety caused by life events, suicidal teens that haven’t made an attempt more than twice, school issues.....

What exactly are they treating and why are we wasting tax payers money on a service not fit for use?

I've changed my username as my original was very identifiable!
I have worked in CAMHS for over 15 years and the Service is chronically under funded. Commissioners ask for more and more without backing it up with any funding.
In my area short term targets are set for identified problem waiting lists which results in money being spent on outsourcing work to private companies as CAMHS simply does not have the staff.
The threshold for acceptance of a referral has increased to where only very risky children are seen.
Most CAMHS professionals want to treat all the very vulnerable children in the community but are suffering burn out from being asked to do so much and carry so much risk for not much reward.
It is truly disheartening to hear that CAMHS as a service is failing families.

It’s more than that Trickor. The service we’ve had has been true it shit. I’ve been shocked at the lack of expertise, professionalism and knowledge. That surely isn’t a money issue.

DH’s private counsellor gave us recommendations when his brother became unwell (still a child at the time). Is there anyone who could give you suggestions?

Fuck all. We ended up going private.

wonky they won't see dd for anxiety. We have tried and tried. Eventually we saw a private psychiatrist who described her anxiety as severe and she's now on medication. Common problem in our area. Glad it's better where you are.

Trigger warning for suicide.

One of my children got a referral to CAMHS after telling pretty much everyone (school, Scouts, clubs, parents) that he wanted to kill himself. He was discharged on first appointment because he hadn't actually tried to commit suicide yet.

So only the kids whose parents can afford private get MH treatment?

The CAMHS service I work in has a specialised Learning Disability team, diagnoses Autism and ADHD and offers CBT, Trauma therapy, Group Therapy and has a separate Eating Disorders and Emergency Crisis Team - but unfortunately there are waits for all these interventions.

We were engaged with cahms 10 year's ago. They were shocking. A waste of time. My DD was self harming.took an overdose and lots more. We saw 3 different people over course of 6 month's everyone asked the same questions..but didn't offer any help. Her school counselor and head of year were better at helping her even though they were clearly bout of Thier depth and her issues were very complex

I just want my son’s severe depression and anxiety treated.

No team for that I’m guessing. What am I paying taxes and NI for if we don’t get the help we need?

What are we actually supposed to do?

I don't work in camhs but I work in the same building and have regular interactions with them. The building is massive, lots of treatment rooms but not enough money to hire staff! They're very frustrated as are parents of children who need support.

Most areas have other services available like Chums etc that deal with lower level. I think you just need to keep referring. Ime kids needs need to be very significant- like actual suicidal attempts, or things that are significantly affecting daily life- so social anxiety so strong they won't leave the house at all. They won't see children who are struggling with bereavement or a one off trauma as the response they are having is often a normal response. It's when it escalates or becomes prolonged, despite interventions like school counsellor, bereavement charity support etc when they should be referred on.

2 years of struggling here. Tried everything. My ds made the big mistake of saying he hated himself. Not a surprising thought for a depressed teen you’d think. Apparently they don’t deal with self hatred so we need to trot off to yet another charity website he is too depressed to access. Apparently it’s all his own fault as he doesn’t try hard enough. He is bloody depressed, if he was trying harder he wouldn’t be as depressed. The lack of knowledge re how depression works is shocking, these are the people deciding who gets treatment and who doesn’t.

Wishing he was dead is clearly not enough so we’ll all just sit and wait for a suicide attempt then.

I will be complaining to PALs, my MP and just about anybody who will listen.

They want to bump him off their books.

@hiredandsqueak - he doesn't, school has been a disaster, he had an awful primary school that we're of the opinion that "he won't need an education anyway" so they humoured him and let him pace back and forth and leap and prance along the back of the class, he missed all the foundations for things like English, then he had one brilliant year at a new primary before moving to secondary and they've been worse than useless.

He is so far behind he won't get any GCSEs at all, he's still reaching level 1 or 2 for everything apart from maths.
The school had a SENCO who said she could get an EHCP with a lot of work but then she left and we were left hanging waiting for a promised new SENCO who would get one no problem, he eventually arrived and has refused to apply, changed test results, guided DS though assessments to show he's 'top 3% of all students his age' which is crap, he can't even read well. Then I finally snapped, applied for a needs assessment and the school refused to provide any info so they couldn't make a decision, then we met with the head teacher who let slip this SENCO had actually applied for an EHCP (with no info again) and it's had obviously been turned down she then said she's start mediation and they reduced his timetable dramatically, then lockdown happened and he'll be starting year 11 in September.

I'm broken if I'm honest I can't fight them anymore. He wants to go back (he has no notion of anything being wrong or bad - which is part of his issues) so I'll have to let him sit and then try again with college or similar.

School blame hospital, hospital blame school. Either way I can't get anyone to give me even an ounce of support and I've no clue where to turn.

I could write pages and pages about his issues, his biggest being zero empathy and the inability to connect his actions and consequences.

We actually have a clinical psychologist who is lovely but all he can offer is the suggestion to speak to DS's consultant and ask for a referral to CAMHS and they won't see him.

I honestly think they're all trying to run the clock out so he's not children's services problem anymore.

They discharged him accidentally apparently except I don’t think it was an accident and massaging figures is at play.So we’re back to square 1.

What are cahms actually for?? My daughter was referred and I heard that it’s SO hard to be seen by them and that they are impossible to get accepted, but my daughter with autism was accepted straight away because she’s thinks people are looking at her and talking about her when they are not.

We had a 7 month wait for assessment with CAHMS after my son had cut himself to shreds. During which time his father passed away.

On assessment they would not even discuss the new bereavement, diagnosed anxiety, then had a 4 month wait for 'group sessions.' Told me to get him a safe box with clean cutting implements and plasters to stop infection risk

Group sessions were 4 x 1hour sessions of 6 kids telling them the biology of anxiety and not to worry about exams, then discharged with no follow up at all. Waste of all our time.

Why don’t they just train GPs up to send kids to the correct agency. You go anyway. Cut out out the really crap and useless middle layer. It’s a complete waste of money and massages figures of kids not being seen by who they should be.

Took 3 years for Ds to be seen by them.
They refused to whilst victim support was working with her.
Am reserving judgement so far but it seems to be all talk and there is zero support for parents which is abysmal.

Dd ended up in care because things got so bad.
The one outsider who saw the violence was the CAMHs Dr who lied.
I'll never forgive them.

This is what the Tories have done to MH services. Its appalling.

We had difficult accessing CAMHs too for teenager with ASD with severe anxiety, we couldn't even get past the triage and onto the list. It is really difficult to access the services once you have an asd diagnosis. We did eventually manage to get on the waiting list when his OCD took a really bad turn and by the time he was seen we too were also considering going private as we were so desperate for help. He's getting CBT via CAMHS now and I have to say that his counsellor is great and we are slowly making progress.