Counselling - CAHMS or is there anywhere else?

[roundabout1]

Hi A long story but my dd has had a lot of problems medically this last year,missed lots of school and is now out of the loop with a lot of her schoolfriends, she is now quite angry, down & withdrawn. Prior to this she was a very happy, kind, thoughtful girl, now she is very negative and anxious about everything. We are waiting for her to be seen by a counsellor through school but have been warned of a long wait. We are due to see her Paediatrician soon & I wondered if they can refer to anyone. I did ask her Headteacher about referring to CAHMS, that had been mentioned as an option previously. I was advised that the school counsellor was a better option as CAHMS may advise the parenting course first even before being seen by anyone. We have been waiting a long time as it is and although I am not against a Parenting course it doesn't seem the most helpful thing to us immediately if this makes sense. I have heard of Young Minds & also another group whose name escapes me at the moment. Just wondered what others had found.

Well, im my LA, CAMHS will only ever see people who have already done a parenting course too, so I'm not surprised by you being told that. Also, the waiting list for CAMHS is pretty long, so I'm not sure you would be any quicker than waiting for the school counsellor.
There are various charities (Barnado's, NSPCC, etc) who run certain things, but it is usually very localised, and often on short term grant funded projects - night there be anything like that near you ? Would the hospital your dd has been under have anything or know anything ?

Thanks for that. I will contact the hospital & ask them, I need to speak to the Paeds secretary as I dont want to say about dd's behaviour in front of her. I did read ina pamphlet at the hospital that they can refer to CAHMS but no mention of anyone else. I have nothing against doing a Parenting course its just that things are pretty grim here & I'ma bit worried about dd's state of mind so to know we could see someone soon would help.

The CAMHS service that I work in does not automatically want parents of children referred to the service to do a parenting course; maybe it is different in other areas but I would be very surprised if this was an automatic criteria for every referral as a) it would be very expensive and b) of course not all parents NEED parenting courses.

But anyway, I would suggest talking to your GP about your DD, OP, as they can make an initial judgement on whether the problem is serious enough for CAMHS or whether there is a different service in your area - such as a young person's counselling service - that might be more appropriate. If you are due to see a Paediatrician they can probably refer in to CAMHS.

My daughter is in a similar position. We were referred to the local CAMHS team by the GP. After a few weeks wait she was seen by the physcologist who prescribed fluoxetine. All further appointments lasted a few minutes only because the physcologist did not take the initiative and initiate any conversation. She asked if my daughter wanted to talk to her, my daughter said 'no' and that was it. She didn't try to engage her in any way. Fortunately she retired after a few months and was replaced by a an excellent doctor who connected really well with her. However he was only there temporarily and has now been replaced by another temporary doctor. She is now 16 and although the NICE guidelines say that CAMHS should cover up to 18 year olds we have been told that she now has to go into the adult system.

The only good thing is that she seems to be coming back to 'normal' and is no longer anywhere near so sad. School have been very supportive. I have also spent a lot of time talking to her as well and all of this has helped

I hope that you have more success with your CAMHS service. The one in this area has been with one exception a waste of time.