The Community Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) is a team of professionals who offer assessment and treatment to children and young people around their emotional well being.
Our service works with Children and young people aged 0-18 years old that may be showing signs of behavioural difficulties and / or emotional distress.
Difficulties include worries / anxieties, low mood, controlling anger, bereavement and lose, bullying, eating problems, self harm and relationship difficulties.
The service consists of a multidisciplinary team of mental health practitioners including, nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, health visitors, teachers, early years workers, counsellor and admin staff, all with additional child and adolescent mental health training. This includes Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Systemic Family Therapy and Person Centred Counselling.
The Community CAMHS service aims to deal with such difficulties in the early stages and focuses on prevention and early intervention. The aim is to develop skills and resilience to promote positive well being / mental health and minimise the risk of further difficulties or distress.
Following the acceptance of the referral, children and young people and their families will receive an assessment from one of our clinicians. This will allow us to make the right decisions about what happens next. This could be individual work, group work or in some cases a transfer to Specialist Mental Health Services. The service aim is to ensure that children and young people are seen by the right service to meet their need. The service works within the NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) guidelines around treatment interventions offered.
The service has 3 locality bases across Sunderland, Washington and the Coalfield’s. Families will be seen at the closest venue to where they live. The service will also see children and young people and their families at other locations such as GP surgeries and schools.
The service can provide consultation advice and support directly to families but also to other agencies working with children and young people presenting with mental health difficulties and will support the team around the child.
Criteria for access
Community CAMHS is commissioned to provide a service of prevention of mental health problems, and early intervention when mental health problems occur, for children and young people aged 0-18.
Aspects of clinical referrals which make them appropriate for Community CAMHS are:
Mild to moderate mental health problems
A brief history of presenting mental illness
Lack of clearly established mental illness, but likelihood of developing one
A strong community emphasis is likely to be necessary in resolving the problems
An opportunity for preventative work is present
There is some children and young people who may be presenting with the above but as their family circumstances maybe different they maybe more suitable for the specialist CAMHS.
Health professionals, children services (including schools) and voluntary agencies referrals are accepted by letter or by strengthening families’ form which come via children’s services.
The service operates from three venues across the city:
- Valley Road Community Primary School (Main Office)
- Southwick Community Primary School
- Wessington Primary School
Targeted services
The service is a targeted mental health service for children and young people and families with moderately severe mental health needs that cannot be met by universal or early intervention services. This includes the provision of a range of short evidence based mental health interventions delivered by CAMHS practitioners and counsellors.