Herefordshire CAMHS Complex and Vulnerable Service
The Herefordshire CAMHS Complex team are a small team of Psychologists and highly specialist CAMHS Practitioners within CAMHS whose work is focused on increasing the reach of specialist mental health work to children, young people and families who may not engage with usual Tier 3 CAMHS interventions. The team uses a trauma-informed approach recognising the impact that adverse childhood experiences have on children and young people and how trauma-informed care is more response to the needs of children with very complex needs.
The team offers:
- Assessment to children and young people with very complex needs, who may also present with other difficulties or have experiences of care, trauma and neurodiversity.
- Psychological consultancy and family consultation to young people who regularly attend Hereford County Hospital (or at risk of regularly attending) in crisis. The aim of this work is to develop specialist risk management planning to increase the resources available to families and young people when psychological crisis arises.
- TI:MAP: supports co-ordinated, psychologically informed multi-agency working by offering Consultation sessions to professionals around a child, with a focus on meeting the needs of the child holistically TI:MAP. NICE guidelines highlight the need for co-ordinated care across systems for children with a range of presenting difficulties, particularly those with high numbers of ACEs (e.g. those at risk of, or those who are already, looked after). The need for co-ordinated support for children with high numbers of ACEs is repeatedly emphasised by the Children’s Commissioner (e.g. Vulnerability Report, 2018). Multi-agency working is also consistently highlighted in Serious Case Reviews as an essential part in protecting children.
- Consultation/reflective practice to other agencies working with complex and vulnerable children.
Herefordshire CAMHS Single Point of Access (SPA) referral information
The information below is used to refer to all Herefordshire CAMHS services, apart from the Eating Disorders service.
All referrals into Herefordshire CAMHS must be completed by professionals using the CAMHS referral form. Guidelines for referrers is also available.
The CAMHS team in Herefordshire receive referrals from people who work closely with children and young people such as GPs, school nurses, health visitors, social workers, specialist staff within schools and paediatricians.
Referrals are screened by the team to make sure they are suitable and to identify urgent referrals. When a referral is accepted the family or young person will be invited to make a CHOICE appointment. Other professionals may also be invited to this appointment.
Confidentiality
Confidentiality is very important to CAMHS - all the information given in CAMHS appointments is confidential. Usually only the person who made the referral and the GP will know about the appointments.
The team will only share information about young people when we feel it is absolutely necessary, and the clinicians will always explain what information is being shared and why.
Sometimes it can be helpful to share information, for example with schools or other health staff.
The CAMHS clinician will discuss the information to be shared and ask children, young people and their families/carers for consent to share. Sometimes young people do not want to share their information with their parents/carers. This can be identified in the referral. The CAMHS clinician will discuss this with the young person to understand more about their circumstances and assess whether they are competent to make that decision for themselves.
If there are concerns that a child or young person may be at risk of harm, CAMHS will always share this information with the relevant agencies, though we would hope to inform the child or young person and their family/carers about the referral and the reasons for this.
If you are unsure about anything, please ask the team.
Help and resources
If you are a child or young people please visit the our information section to find out more about feelings and emotions.
Give feedback on our services
We are always looking for feedback on our services and we would love to hear from you. You can complete the quick CAMHS feedback survey here.