cahms assessment

[bernadette12]

hello has anyone ever experienced a 15 year old adolescent going through exam stress and being referred to CAHMS. Having had 2 appointments with a cahms counsellor, i was asked to urgently take my child to A&E for a mental assessment due to divulging to counsellor that they had self harmed over a year ago.
There seems to have been no follow up from cahms in that they did not inform A&E and i was asked why we were here. having had 3 doctors interview my child we left,. Cahms rang my child school and my child was told not to come back to school unless he was given a psychiatrist approval. This took 5 days. Since this happened my child has shut down and will not communicate with outside counsellors and the social services are involved. There has never been any incidents at school involving my child's behaviour other than Cahms alerting the school of what the child said. Now the school don't even want my child to collect their exam results just in case the results dont go in their favor and they have a meltdown.

Cahms have done more damage than good and we are in a firestorm of investigations and meetings galore.Is this common practise?
What records are kept on the child and who can access them. Their medical future could affect applications to college and future work due to this cahms referral to A&E. I thought counselling was meant to be good but I would not recommend a teenager going to it. Find a friend if a child cant talk to their parent. I have lost any faith in counselling. Has anyone experienced this before teenage angst??

Cahms been very helpful to my dd.

This sounds terrible. I have no useful experience to share but am sure someone will do soon. What does your GP say?

my GP referred us to cahms for teenage angst woe betide any youngster who needs counselling sorry the conduct of Cahms has been deplorable and deceptive when questioned what has gone one

Sorry you've had a bad experience. But as I said mine was a positive one. So it depends on where you go rather than the whole service.

I could have written your post about my 15yr old sister. She self harms and was taken to the gp by our mum over a year ago, after a lengthy process she was eventually referred to cahms. They seem abit ad hoc with counselling and my sister wasn't really getting much from it as she wouldn't talk to a stranger.

It took a suicide attempt by my sister hours before a gcse exam and a trip to a and e and the children's ward on a 36hr drip to flush the tablets out of her system. This spurred the doctors to make an emergency cahms referral who then accepted there was a problem and prescribed sleeping inducer tablets and anti depressants.
She's still under cahms one but this more to monitor her medication.
Why are social services involved?
Have you been into the school to talk about your dd?
At one point my sister was harming at school and they were very supportive.

Just re read your post, the school sounds totally over the top. I would ask to see their policies around a student who has self harmed or is self harming. Surely asking the child to be removed from school pending a psychiatric assessment is a great detriment to the child