CAMHS Mental Health Worker on Monday - wot's that then?

[treedelivery]

My child is 8, ???aspergers, ???just anxious, ???nothing at all just a bit quirky.

A paed who met her, and (rightly) picked up on her little odd ways referred her to a child psychologist.

Many moons and many seasons passed and we got to see the local psychologist. Really really like her, seems very calm and considered and plain nice. She says there is enough to go ahead to a mdt assessment of dd but that CAMHS should have a look at her to see if her issues are anxiety based causing add little ways, or odd little ways leading to anxiety.

So here we are. Monday we see this mental health worker type person. I never thought to ask who they are or what they do, are they nurses? Or trained some-thing-or-others.

DD is out of school, home schooled for nearly a year. WE have been on this road a good 18 months and I can hardly remember why we started.

What will they ask me? I'm crap in these situations and have a truly dreadful memory, so I need some warning!

Thanks for reading x

I suppose if you no longer think she needs assessing then you could just cancel the appointment.

Is she ever likely to go back into school? If not then maybe she doesnt need a dx although there are lots of undiagnosed people especially women who struggle through life wondering why they dont fit in.

Sorry not much help really. We have found a diagnosis helpful for Dd3 but everyone is different.

Good luck

Thank you for your reply Ineedmorepatience (me too).

Her anxiety sometimes keeps her awake at night, say 3/4 nights out of a week, especially if she is busy or been somewhere. So I would like help with that, I am not too worried about how we get it, if you see what I mean. We'll cheerfully turn up anywhere if there is someone sensible there, who wants to help us.

She tells me she is going back to school for secondry. She has heard they have prepaid cards to buy their lunch in the canteen and that is the last word in cool. Bless . She may well go back next year or sometime.

Have you been to one of these assessments by CAHMS? What do they do?

Sorry took so long to reply I was juggling my children

My Dd3 also has trouble sleeping if she is anxious. She has a diagnosis of Asd but she fits the profile for Aspergers pretty well.

She was assessed at CAMHS when she was 8. The first time we went the mental health practitioner took a history from us and asked us what we hoped to get out of our visits. We found her very easy to talk to and she didnt judge us at all(which made a nice change)

She then referred us on to the next tier and we had a case worker who was a mental health nurse, he gathered evidence for Dd3's assessment and did some work with her to assess her empathy and imagination.

He then referred us on to a psychiatrist who did the final assessment and collated all the information and made the diagnosis.

Hope some of that helps