Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) work with children and young people up to the age of 18 in Brent with complex mental health difficulties.
Support is provided in different ways, depending on the needs of the child, the young person and their family. In order to reach the threshold for specialist CAMHS, children and young people need to have severe mental health difficulties, including persistent and impairing symptoms, risk to self or others and/or complex presentation related to disorders such as:
- Depression and self harm
- OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder)
- Anxiety
- ADHD (attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder)
- Eating disorders
- Psychosis
- Autism
There is a multi-disciplinary team, which provides assessment and treatment packages for the child/young person and their family. This may include cognitive behavioural therapy, family therapy, child psychotherapy, psycho-pharmacology and group psychotherapy.
The service also provides advice and support to family members, consultation to professionals and training for schools on how to identify and deal with mental health difficulties in children and young people. Referrals are mostly accepted from GPs, health professionals and social services.