Herefordshire Early Intervention for Psychosis

The Early Intervention for Psychosis team and the CAMHS service provide assessment and intervention for children and young people experiencing or at risk of experiencing an episode of psychosis for the first time, with clinicians from both teams working closely together.    

Getting timely access to early intervention support for psychosis has been shown to positively impact the lives of people with psychosis and their families. Evidence-based interventions, such and behavioural family therapy (BFT) and cognitive behavioural therapy for psychosis (CBT-P), are provided to young people and their families who are assessed as experiencing or at risk of experiencing psychosis.

Young people and their families also have access to the range of interventions offered by the CAMHS service and are offered a service which responds to their needs based on their age, development and family circumstances.

There is close liaison with adult mental health services to ensure that children and young people who experience psychosis symptoms are identified and supported early on.

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.