Who are CAMHS?
CAMHS stands for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). We support young people aged 0 to 18 years who are experiencing mental health difficulties and are finding it hard to cope with everyday life.
Our teams are made up of a variety of professionals. Many are called CAMHS practitioners and have a nursing, social work, or support worker background. There are also:
- clinical psychologists
- CAMHS psychiatrists
- peer support workers
- administrators
in each team.
CAMHS Teams
CAMHS Core Team
Core CAMHS is a team of trained Mental Health Practitioners and Assistant Practitioners from various clinical backgrounds. These include:
- Mental Health Nurses
- Social Workers
- Psychologists
- Psychiatrists.
This is the team you would usually see on your first visit to CAMHS, unless you accessed our service at a period of crisis. This team works with:
- children
- young people
- parents & carers
to assess the mental health of children and adolescents who have been identified as potentially having moderate to severe mental health needs.
Visit our my first appointment page to learn more about what to expect on your first visit to CAMHS.
CAMHS Crisis and Enhanced Treatment Team (CCETT)
The CAMHS Crisis and Enhanced Treatment Teams (CCETT) are based in Lincoln and Boston and cover the whole county.
The staff members are from various backgrounds including:
- social work
- nursing
- occupational therapy
- support workers.
We aim to support young people in a mental health crisis through providing assessment and intensive home treatment. This includes supporting young people experiencing thoughts of suicide and engaging in significant self harming behaviours.
By working with young people and their families and carers, we aim to avoid hospital admission wherever possible by providing intensive support in the home environment. We know from extensive research this provides better outcomes for young people.
Working Hours
Normal working hours 8.45am to 7pm every day.
Out of hours triage service 7pm to 8.45am to respond to A&E, the police or ambulance services. This is to provide support and advice around mental health presentations to these services. We aim to see all young people appropriate for the service within 72 hours.
We are able to offer intensive, evidence based, short term support (eg. up to eight weeks). This aims to manage risk and prevent deterioration via group work, 1to1 therapy (CBT, DBT, EMDR and Animal Assisted).
Young people can access our service via GPs and social workers directly or can make a CAMHS self-referral 9.30am to 4.30pm Monday to Friday.
If a young person does not meet the criteria for our team, we will signpost to a more appropriate service (within LPFT or otherwise).
CAMHS Eating Disorder Team
The CAMHS Community Eating Disorder Service provides care and treatment for young people with anorexia nervosa, bulimia, binge eating or atypical eating disorders.
A young person with an eating disorder may focus excessively on their weight and shape, leading them to make unhealthy choices about food with damaging results to their health. Eating disorders include a range of conditions that can affect someone physically, psychologically and socially.
Our teams are based around the county, providing 24 hour care. We operate Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm,
with home support in place 7 days a week 8am-6pm. Our service is supported by the Crisis and Home Treatment Team out of hours. To ensure the service is available in a flexible way, staff within the team are able to offer some appointments up to 8pm. The Crisis and Home Treatment Team work 24 hours a day (on-call during the night for emergencies), 7 days a week. The staff work from child-friendly premises around the county, including Lincoln, Boston, Grantham and Louth.
GPs, paediatricians and social workers can refer directly by sending a letter or using a CAMHS referral form via the Single Point of Access (SPA). Email: lincs.spa@nhs.net
All other referrers should first speak to the CAMHS Professional Advice Line for discussion and guidance on the suitability of the referral. The Professional Advice Line is available Monday to Friday, 9am-4.45pm, on 01522 309120.
CAMHS Learning Disability Service
You can watch a video about our CAMHS Learning Disability Service on YouTube.
Download our CAMHS Learning Disability Service Easy Read Guide (Photosymbols)
Download our CAMHS Learning Disability Service Easy Read Guide (Widget)
The CAMHS Learning Disability (LD) team is a community based specialist service offering support to children and young people, aged between 0 to 18 years, who are experiencing significant mental health problems and who are diagnosed with moderate to severe learning disability.
Our friendly team consists of:
- Team Coordinator
- Consultant Psychiatrist
- Medical Secretary
- Clinical Lead/Independent prescriber/ LD Nurse
- Highly Specialised Clinical Psychologist
- LD Practitioners/ Nurses
- Assistant Practitioners
We also offer placements to other professionals, e.g. Trainee Nurse Associates and Trainee Clinical Psychologists.
We are non-judgemental and very approachable; we keep in touch using various methods, including:
- Telephone
- Virtual platforms e.g., Microsoft (MS) Teams
- Face-to-face
Our aim is to offer the best service we can to ensure the best outcome for the children and young people we support.
"I was amazed how fast the team got in touch with me and dealt with the situation." - Parent
The referral 'journey'
Referral
Once we receive the referral, one of our qualified clinicians will take a look and decide if it meets our criteria; if not, we might ask the referrer for further information or signpost to other services.
Appointment offer
An Initial Assessment appointment will be offered as appropriate; either ‘face-to-face’ or ‘virtually’ (MS Teams).
Pre-assessment
One of the team will then give the parent/ carer a call to go through some general information that we require prior to the assessment. We will ensure that they are happy with how the assessment will be completed.
Initial Assessment
We will then complete the assessment with the parent/ carer; at this stage the child/ young person does not have to be present. We will discuss the child/ young persons history, how they are presenting now and expectations from the referral.
If appropriate, we will then complete observations of the child/ young person in various settings e.g., home, school, respite, community.
We will then discuss the referral as a whole team and decide what interventions we might be able to offer; or we will signpost to other services.
How we can help
The team will work with you, your parents or carers, schools, health professionals and social care to offer individual tailored advice and strategies to support you. This might include:
- Conducting a comprehensive holistic assessment to include psychological, emotional and behavioural health as well as looking at physical issues which could be affecting mental health wellbeing (e.g. sleep)
- Conducting a psychiatric assessment and medication consultation or review (if required)
- Offering behaviour management advice and interventions
- 1 to1 time with the young person and their family
- Offering telephone consultations and advice
- Teaching and consultation to agencies (such as schools, respite services, children’s homes)
- Offering a parent support programme.
- Signposting to other appropriate agencies
This is not an exhaustive list and most importantly, following any assessments parents/carers and the child/young person, where possible, will be invited to be involved in deciding the best course of action.
Information regarding mental capacity and Gillick competency can be found on our 'Additional information for parents and carers' web page.
What we help with
Usually when we are sad, angry, stressed or worried these feelings gradually pass with both time and with support from people around us:
- family
- friends
- school
- support workers.
However, if these feelings go on for a long time and start to really affect your everyday life, then CAMHS may be able to help you.
At CAMHS we see young people with many different types of mental health difficulties and may depend on the team service. Some examples include:
- Low mood and Depression
- Anxiety, including phobia’s and obsessive thoughts and behaviours
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Self-harm and thoughts of suicide
- Eating disorders, including anorexia and bulimia
How we can help
Here at CAMHS we offer what are called care pathways. This means that if you are experiencing a mental health difficulty and need our support, we will recommend the therapy that is likely to give you the best outcome, based on medical evidence and guidelines.
However we also recognise that everybody is different. If you come to CAMHS it is really important that we work together with you to decide what kind of help and treatment is right for you.
These are some (but not all!) of the types of treatments you may be offered at CAMHS.
- Cognitive behavioural therapy
- Dialectical behavioural therapy
- Eye movement desensitisation reprocessing
- Interpersonal Psychotherapy
- Group work
“Before I came to CAMHS I had been suffering with OCD and Anxiety. Dealing with upsetting OCD thoughts made me very tired, and sometimes my anxiety made it hard for me to go out and do what I wanted.
I was worried I wouldn’t be understood at CAMHS, and that the experience would be very upsetting. But the staff I met were very supportive, and I never felt judged. I was helped to understand and manage my difficulties. CAMHS helped me to develop strategies for dealing with situations that I found difficult, and I was able to build up to them with smaller, more managable goals.
The techniques I learnt at CAMHS helped me to manage situations that made me anxious, and move past unwanted thoughts.
Now I’ve been able to do what I want, and even volunteer to help others recovering from mental illness.”
