CAMHS and MH services

[EdwynCollins]

I keep listening but I haven't heard them mentioned. Has anyone heard anything. We are desperate for CAMHS to start working again, over the phone just doesn't work

Same here, we are at the end of a super long line for an ASD assessment and it's taking forever usually, and now it's going to be forever and more :/

I’m a paeds community nurse. The CAMHS service in your area will largely be based on their COVID-19 plan. In our area they are currently focusing on the kids with very significant emotional health needs and the bar is incredibly high for referral criteria. I really feel for you, the long ASD assessment process must be exhausting as a parent. Have you contacted your school nursing team? They may be able to help.

I read the document earlier - mental health is not mentioned at all. I have no hope of CAMHS opening up and their waiting list getting anywhere shorter than Santa's naughty and nice lists ever again to be honest.

This generation have been shamefully failed.

I have one child with suspected ASD whose behaviour is escalating as the lockdown goes on to the point of physical violence, and one who is really clearly depressed but incredibly young to be suffering so badly - and I have no hope for them getting any support at all.

Started trying to get an assessment for our daughters ADHD diagnosis about 15 months ago. Had the telephone assessment last month and now stalled again.

I absolutely do not blame CAMHS, it is a stretched resource at the best of times. I honestly don't know how it is going to cope after the impact this (necessary) lockdown is going to have on children's MH.

I'm in the same boat, we were so close to final stage of diagnosis before lockdown 😔

Camhs in our area won't see autistic children full stop. Autistic Ds was referred in December last year after significant mental health difficulties. We received a letter from the screening team in January to saying he didn't meet the threshold for support. They told us to contact our local autism charity instead. Not sure how the charity are meant to help a child who no longer wanted to be alive. It's truly rubbish and these young people are just ignored with no support at all.

I hope those that are waiting for support, assessments and appointments get them soon. The CAMHS services and waiting lists are bad enough at the best of times so they must be awful now with Covid issues in top.

@WotcherHarry My son is still in nursery, which is closed. We're so desperate as we knew something was wrong for months, and we already waited 5 months for a phonecall from SALT to see if we can get a referral, that is now gonna take so much longer to materialise, the waiting and knowing we will be waiting for years is killing us :/

all services in our area are either remote or via video link at the moment. This works to a varying degree tbh.

Don’t think we even have any services apart from volunteer ones running. School washed their hands of us, GP just blames parenting without even seeing the child - and with communication difficulties getting them to speak on the phone is hard anyway - we are completely adrift and abandoned.