Child And Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) teams are groups of Professionals who help children, young parents, parents and carers. The staff working in the teams are Nurses, Doctors, Therapists, Psychologists and Social Workers. We help children and young people having problems with things at home, in school, at college, growing up or with their families. From time to time, all young people may struggle with getting on with life. For example, if you are regularly feeling depressed, are self harming or feeling anxious and worried you may benefit from a referral to CAMHS. CAMHS provides a therapeutic service, which means we listen to you and talk with you about your difficulties and work out ways of how to resolve them.
If you feel that we can help you please go to your GP , school nurse or trusted adult and they can contact us. We offer services across Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset. For professionals : The service aims to
* prevent the development of emotional and behavioural problems through consultation, advice, training and support .
* Early intervention to children and young people aged 0-18 years and their families is offered for mild to moderate emotional health and wellbeing difficulties. The service provides assessments and up to 6-8 sessions of group/ individual interventions from primary mental health workers.
The service also responds to moderate and severe emotional health and behavioural problems of children and young people aged 0-18 and their families, often these have a significant impact on functioning and /or present significant risk. The service provides assessment and therapeutic interventions of up to an average of 18 sessions provided by CAMHS professionals for those with more moderate to severe difficulties.
There is a CAMHS team based in each locality.
• Bournemouth and Christchurch CAMHS Shelley Clinic 22 Tower Road Bournemouth Dorset BH1 4LB 01202 646300 Team Leader: Lisa White
• Poole CAMHS Poole Community Health Clinic Shaftesbury Road Poole Dorset BH15 2NT 01202 584600 Acting Team Leader: Meryl Deacon
• North Dorset CAMHS covering Blandford, Sherbourne, Gillingham, Shaftesbury, Sturminster Newton areas Betty Highwood Unit Blandford Community Hospital Milldown Road Blandford, Dorset. DT11 7DD 01258 394149 Team Leader: Kelly Griffiths/Gillian Banks
• East Dorset CAMHS team. Covering Ferndown, Verwood, Wimborne and Purbeck Delphwood Ashdown Close Poole BH17 8WG 01202 605882 West Dorset CAMHS Team. Covering Dorchester and surrounding areas. The Childrens Centre Damers Road Dorchester Dorset DT1 2LB 01305 255705 Team Leader: Theresa Sired
• Weymouth and Portland CAMHS Team. Weymouth Community Hospital, Melcombe Ave, Weymouth DT4 7TB 01305 762810 Team Leader: Theresa Baker. Our services are located across the county in a variety of settings, we aim to offer accessible venues for families, including venues in the community rather than in an clinic setting. Please contact each service if you have any special requirements which we need to take into account when you have an assessment or on-going intervention provided by us.
If you would like to discuss whether CAMHS or another service is appropriate for you and your family please discuss this with your GP, school, school nurse or other professional supporting your family. If you are a professional wishing to refer, please contact the duty clinician weekdays between 9.00am and 5.00pm on the CAMHS Single Point of Access locality numbers given above. For professionals making a referral this should be made via the CAMHS referral form. It is essential to provide as much detail as possible; and that the person with parental responsibility consents to the referral unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Factors to include in the referral:
•what the young person and their parent/carer want help with
•who lives at home,
•who has parental responsibility
•what other services are currently involved
•safeguarding status
•what has already been tried
•how the problem is affecting them at home, school or socially
•any safeguarding concerns
•past medical, social or mental health problems in the young person or their family. What the family are hoping to get from the referral. All referrals will be screened for appropriateness and urgency on a daily basis.
Referrals screened as being inappropriate for CAMHS will be sign-posted to more appropriate services.
Your first appointment is called an assessment or a triage, you can come on your own or with your family/carer. We want to answer your questions as fully as we can so please ask us anything at this first appointment. At your first appointment we will want to know about what life is like for you, at home, at school, with friends, what is good , what is not so good and how you want things to be different. We will also explain confidentiality, sharing information and how we keep the information we have about safe. Please ring your team before your assessment if you have any questions about your first appointment. After your first appointment we might think that another service is best for you but we also might want to see you again to work out ways of helping you and get to know you better by talking, drawing, being creative, playing or joining a group of other children or young people. Remember, you are the expert about you, your life and family so….. Don't be afraid to tell us how you feel.
If you have any questions you can ask them at any time. We will expect that you try to take responsibility for all aspects of your treatment that you can change. We also ask that you let us know as soon as possible if you are un-able to attend your appointment. We will be happy to arrange another. The CAMHS team usually offer assessments and appointments between Monday and Friday, tailored to meet your needs, sometimes early in the morning or after school/work. Some children and young people also need to access help out of these routine working hours, if this would help you, your CAMHS worker will refer you to the CAMHS crisis and out of hours service. We will keep you involved in decision making along the way, we especially want to hear your goals for coming to see us and will work out a plan with you about how best to get to these goals.
If we think that you will need on-going help from adult mental health services we will begin to think about this with you when you reach seventeen and a half. CAMHS and adult services are very different and it can sometimes be hard to adjust to a new team and a new way of working. If you do need a transition your CAMHS key worker will support and guide you through the process. Remember please ask as many questions as you need to!