PipinJo, that was really interesting. My experiences of CAMHS have left me very bitter, and extremely mis-trustful (is that a word? I don't trust the buggers!)
I first referred ds to CAmhs when he was 5, while we were in the refuge, and it was in-my-face obvious that he was different. I was told to give him lots of hugs.
When ds changed schools in yr3, not long before his 8th birthday, the senco at his new school asked if he had ever been assessed for AS, as from her experience he had a lot of similar traits. We had him referred, because his 'differentness' was having quite an impact on his education. The first Camhs worker we met with was an adolescent mental health nurse. In her opinion the was no chance of ds being on the spectrum because he could make eye contact and have a conversation about trains. She had a telephone convo with xh (alcoholic, emo and physically abusive) then made a referral to social services accusing me of emotional abuse. I now have a copy of the referral, there's a lot of quotes from the xh that she's based her judgement on, and some very damaging and obviously incorrect assumptions. I complained, on the back of that camhs reassessed ds, and came up with a preliminary dx of PTSD. Which kinda made sense, given his experiences. Meanwhile xh had made another of his malicious allegations to social services and I have social workers coming to visit, and the fear of losing my children as that was what I had had 7 years of hearing form xh, and I was turning into a wreck. So that was up to August.
In September I enrolled for the IAPT course CAMHS had pushed me into taking (bullied? Felt that if I didn't go they'd make more accusations) I was also back in court against xh, where his barrister claimed the dx of PTSD was incorrect because the DV had never taken place 
. I went back to CAMHS, explained this and they decided to do a second opinion, which came up with a dx of AS and ADHD. In between the decision to do a second opinion, and the dx, the CAMHS worker spoke to the cafcass officer, and made some more inflammatory claims. That I was trying to pathologi se (sp!) ds, and that all his issues were due to my parenting. That during the course I was standoffish and PA, and accused me of self harming within the last 6 months.
So now I still have social workers assessing me, Ds struggles with contact, there is a clear 2 weeks cycle in his behaviour that ties in with the 2 week contact schedule. He is behind by 2 years in his work, and a good day is if he isn't too disruptive, doesn't make too many noises (which are attention seeking) and doesn't disrupt any other child's learning. DS often has massive outbursts at home, and it's hard for the dds. I am still a nervous wreck. There is a massive paper trail accusing me of harming my son, and now despite this dx, and the social worker saying she can see nothing wrong with my parenting, I worry about losing my kids. On one hand she's pushing me to see if CAMHS can offer any support, yet at the same time she is saying she has a child on her books with far greater issues, that she cannot get camhs to support.
Camhs are a waste of f@@king space, in my opinion. The main worker who made all these allegations to cafcass is a clinical nurse. I have since gone is, and spoken to the team manager, and someone from PALS who handled my original complaint about this, but as usual, no apology, no nothing. They don't care. And anyone who need support is on their own. I would have to think extremely hard and carefully before I ever went near CAMHS again.