Could I have your honest opinions on CAMHS please?

[whateverisabeartodo]

I've worked in mental health in education for some time now and have been offered a role in CAMHS.

There is a good career progression, decent salary, job security, CPD, lots of things I don't get in my current role. However, in my area CAMHS don't have a great reputation and I worry I'd be selling my sole to leave a job I love and believe in for something that is better for me but maybe won't fulfil me as much.

So, just wondered if anyone has experience as a parent of a child accessing CAMHS and what your opinion was? Thank you!

[quote RosesAndHellebores]@C8H10N402 that wasn't my experience. I wrote a detailed letter to the CCG with a number of questions to be raised at their public board meeting. They were minuted and I received a four page response. I need to write again having monitored camhs feedback on our local healthwatch site. I have regular correspondence with our MP too.

I do this because I know we were so lucky to have choices re dd.[/quote]
I am impressed to be honest. Follow ups to the two MPs in my family's case resulted in more boiler plate from one and the second was crass enough to invite them to support his campaign for re-election to ensure the "high" level of spending was maintained.

Both CCGs obfuscated, closed ranks and were defensive on follow up, simply denying certain conversations or actions took place. In one case we are fairly sure records were "lost" and amended. I always laugh when people say we should automatically trust someone in a position of authority because they are in healthcare.

I think the real challenge was that both sets of parents were going through the hell of a child at real risk and then seeking and funding specialist treatment. Possibly they should have persisted longer and harder but were overwhelmed at the time and were loathe to start funding expensive actions when trying to fund an undefined path of treatment. I suspect this is true for many of CAMHS' victims.

My point was you don't know the individual contracts each practitioner is on, I have known many to be in flexible working contracts with core hours. You don't seem to want to hear what I'm saying, though, so that's the end of that

This is whataboutery. If there were no staff contracted to be available at 9:00 then the service hours would not start at 9:00.

The issue under discussion is the appalling non-service offered by CAMHS in too many areas.

I am a clinician in CAMHS. It is hell. There are not enough of us and the usual trajectory is working to the point of burnout. I work way over my hours and can't remember the last time I had a lunch break.
Far too much time spent trying to get social work involved and tiptoeing around parents who cannot entertain the idea that issues are family based. This thread is an excellent illustration of the kind of shit that will be thrown at you every day, as if you are personally responsible for the lack of services. Don't do it, think about private work- I do both and it's night and day. Most private practise won't take risky patients so the stress levels are far lower, the pay is roughly double and the work is piss easy by comparison.

@FaintlyHopeful have you considered (as qualified expert) that the diagnoses are needed still.. but family problems you want to say are the problem are only part of it because parents likely have a neurodiversity too? (Genetic is very high..75%).. And/or have been battling for years (take a look at any SEN board you like) Your post reads like all of the CAMHS people I've met who are convinced lots of young people don't have diagnosable conditions and it's just poor parenting/home lives... this has largely been disproven by lots of studies... yet CAMHS continue to say 'its parenting'. Why?!, Most conditions are under-diagnosed in the UK compared to other similar countries.
Where I live many parents end up going to the nearby city and/or London and getting diagnoses after local CAMHS has fobbed them off. When I say lots.. I know maybe 10 parents just in one support group.
Just a thought.
Your post reads like parent blaming.
We get you are overworked, underpaid and under- resourced. But you can leave or at the least have a break on a weekend. Parent carers can't do that.
And loads of us are poorly paid and work through lunch and extra hours for no pay. It's actually really standard in office jobs too.

@Nomoresmoresthensnores where did I say diagnoses are not needed? where did I say anything that you have chosen to divine from my post? Most services are only seeing high risk cases like psychosis/ED/suicidality at the moment. Most that I have seen recently are driven by contextual factors. Not fair or what anyone wants but the degree of abuse levelled at frontline staff is just ridiculous- clinicians generally have no say in what we are told to prioritise.
You are projecting wildly.
And those clinicians that are diagnosing privately are highly likely to work in the NHS too.
Just a thought for you to wrap your head around.

You said you spend far too much time tiptoeing around families whose issues are family based- i.e. caused by the family...

You can't blame parents for the majority of that.

What about undiagnosed co-morbidities underlying all this. I.e. teen girls with undiagnosed ASD.. huge links (in academic literature and anecdotally) to Eating disorders, anxiety, gender dysphoria and other issues you may see.

Maybe if children were picked up sooner some of these other things would be reduced (e.g. years of wait for diagnoses).

I'm not sure families can be blamed for that. I know they are though.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

It can't be nice feeling like you're doing your level best and everyone thinks it's not good enough. I do understand that.
I guess parents are just desperate.

@FaintlyHopeful you’ve really encompassed typical CAMHS practitioner here.

Ds has a diagnosis of ASD/PDA, his paed referred him to camhs at the age of 10.
At the time he was violent and in meltdown following school every day, camhs denied that masking in school was a thing and blamed me, and put me in a parenting course.

The parenting course came with a free book, the practitioners handed out chocolates to parents engaging well, they started each session with an ice breaker - bearing in mind that many of us parents were also autistic and had been open about this - it meant that many of us were in a high state of unnecessary anxiety throughout.
The course was aimed to help adopted children aged 2-8. Most of us there had children aged 10-16.
The premise of the course was to help parents bond with their child - even though the majority of us had no issues with this.
I was using PDA parenting techniques with ds (with hindsight they weren’t terribly effective as ds was still at school at that time, which was the cause of most of his mental issues at the time). I was told that these methods were poor parenting, were causing ds’s meltdowns and violence. I was given alternative strategies (aimed at 2-8 year olds) which made things worse, when I rang for advice I had these strategies repeated at me, no nuance, no listening to anything I said.
When the strategies of the course (being close to him whilst he was playing with Lego and offering up a commentary) led to me being kicked and punched in the face I left the course. 6 weeks in. I diligently used all the strategies suggested, they did not work.
I was then accused of not wanting to be helped, of not having my son’s best interests at heart, of being obstructive, implying that my son’s issues were my fault.
Several other parents on the course had the same experience. I kept in touch with a few, all of their sons were later diagnosed autistic, having had camhs repeatedly insist that they weren’t, and their substandard parenting was the issue.

I can’t imagine the resource cost into the course - 3 clinicians, booking of a hall for 2.5 hours a week for 10 weeks. Not one parent came out of that satisfied that they’d been helped. Most had to take time off work to attend. What a waste of time and an insult to all of those parents.

I’m not denying that there were no family issues going on - you try parenting a child with PDA and see how that affects your family!
The issue at stake though was the fact that my son’s autism went completely unsupported in school because of people who believed they knew best.

Shortly after that particular camhs shitshow I took ds out of school, despite being warned that I was doing the worst thing for him, and that I should be modelling resilience .

5 years later he’s happy, at college, has a job.

Camhs clinicians seem to have preconceptions that parents are lying, that they can’t possibly want the best for their child. Not fit for purpose at all.

This was cathartic to write - it still makes me angry after all this time.

My experience was not unique.

Perhaps clinicians defending the service should have a long hard look at what parents are telling them, and not immediately assume that we’re obstructive liars.

This was cathartic to write - it still makes me angry after all this time
I am angry reading it (for the way you were treated)

@FaintlyHopeful

I am a clinician in CAMHS. It is hell. There are not enough of us and the usual trajectory is working to the point of burnout. I work way over my hours and can't remember the last time I had a lunch break. Far too much time spent trying to get social work involved and tiptoeing around parents who cannot entertain the idea that issues are family based. This thread is an excellent illustration of the kind of shit that will be thrown at you every day, as if you are personally responsible for the lack of services. Don't do it, think about private work- I do both and it's night and day. Most private practise won't take risky patients so the stress levels are far lower, the pay is roughly double and the work is piss easy by comparison.

I am not sure what sort of mental health clinician gets to dismiss issues that are 'family based' or 'contextual', but it potentially reveals a problematic value system and a profound lack of understanding of the social dimension of emotional and behavioural disorders.

To meet current service thresholds children will generally be in significant distress, and due to waiting times, parents will often have been left on their own to hold this distress for an extended period. This in itself is traumatic for families and they have an absolute right to be angry about the lack of support and care.

To suggest there is a hierarchy of 'worthiness', and some children and their families are a problem, is offensive. Children (and their families) who meet the threshold require professional support to unpick issues and, yes, sometimes this does require the coordination of multi-agency interventions to meet a child's needs.

I don't doubt that you are working very very hard in awful conditions, but if you are unable to understand or feel empathy for how a service in that sort of a state is likely to be experienced by families, then moving out of it sounds a good idea.

I'm so sorry this happened. Its absolutely no comfort to know it is absolutely common in fact I don't know anyone was hasn't had 'their parenting' called into question first.
I was initially accused of having PND (i didn't) which caused attachment issues before we finally saw a qualified and quite frankly amazing NHS doctor or said Autism and ADHD (I left out the 5 years in between that!!)
I know one family who eventually found a serious issue caused by a genetic condition... only because she fought. Everyone blamed her because she is a single mum on benefits... arguing

I seriously hope that other poster was a troll!

This 'clinicians' post ( Nurse, doctor, psychologist?) doesn't surprise me in its lack of professionalism, language usage & spelling. It's on par with my own Camhs experience.

Don't do it, funding isn't an issue but getting the staff is. Your case load will be ludicrous, the threshold for intervention will be ridiculously and unsafely high because of lack of staff, and you'll get a lot of abuse. Go agency if you really want and make £££s.

Well that professionals post just reinforces my belife that camhs see these kids as a massive burden and treating them a drudge.

How do you reconcile genetic issues, ADHD and ASD as the parents fault? You have a gift clearly and need to publish your knowledge as by the sounds of it adjusting my behaviours will cure the kids ASD AND recode their DNA. Genius.

Not the first time I have heard that direct from a health professionals mouth. Strangely no paediatrician has ever agreed. I wonder why?

@Cantonet

This 'clinicians' post ( Nurse, doctor, psychologist?) doesn't surprise me in its lack of professionalism, language usage & spelling. It's on par with my own Camhs experience.

Although I struggle to believe there is a Doctor or Psychologist in the land who can't spell practice.

That said, poor spelling is the least of our problems.

As a teenager who's been battling with CAMHS for years, let me tell you this. CAMHS is ridiculous. I've been with them for around 9 years now, and they have repeatedly ghosted me and removed me off of lists (even after my previous attempts). I haven't heard from my therapist since around February, and despite attempts to contact them about worsening symptoms about issues they're very well aware of, they don't seem to care very much

They are absolutely shit & in fact positively harmful in my ds's case. I discharged him after several days of daily appointments in some sinkhole of a school where they repeatedly asked him why he was suicidal. This was by a different person( so called nurse?) each day. How is that considered good practice? It was more covering their backs than anything else.
We then saw a private psychiatrist which really helped & he was diagnosed with ADHD & suspected Autistic tendencies.