Information for Referrers Under Fives Clinic

The Clinic

The Under-Fives’ Clinic is part of CAMHS (Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service). It has been set up for families where there are young children who have difficulties that have not been improved by the strategies and advice offered by primary health care professionals.

The Aim

The hope is that by addressing such difficulties at a very young age, more enduring emotional problems can be avoided in later life.

The Staff

The staff group includes professionals from Child Psychotherapy, Mental Health Nursing, Therapeutic Social Work, Clinical Psychology and Child Psychiatry. The clinicians will consult with any other professionals involved once parental consent has been provided.

The Approach

The professionals involved have a variety of skills and experience, but the approach of the clinic is primarily psychodynamic. This means that we will be interested in the experiences that the family members have had together, as well as in working with them to try to understand the meaning behind the behaviour that is puzzling or difficult. The hope is that this process of struggling together to make sense of what is happening will enable parents to feel less defeated by their task, and the children to feel more contained, so that there can be a shift in the patterns of relating that have been unhelpful.

The Format

We offer up to 5 sessions of 50 minutes’ duration. This may be enough to help the family progress, or we may offer a further series of sessions or suggest a different form of support.

Referral Criteria

• The clinic is for babies and children of up to and including 4 years of age.
• Children can be referred with social, emotional or behavioural difficulties that have not responded to the ordinary strategies employed by the parent or to specific advice and suggestions from other professionals.
• It is helpful to know what services have already been offered, and whether the work identified has been completed prior to the referral. As well as that any diagnostic routes, where possible, have been pursued before referral, we do not provide diagnosis.
• These children may suffer from difficulties around sleeping or eating, or have problems in relationships with parents or siblings.
• They may have experienced trauma around the time of gestation or birth and difficulties in bonding with their mother, or been very ill as a baby or toddler.
• For some children their troubles are linked to parental conflict or separation.
• We also work with children who are fostered or adopted, for whom early life will have had particular stresses and strains.

Referral Details

In order to help us to decide whether we are the best service to work with the family that you wish to refer, it would be helpful if you can provide as much of the following information as possible:

• Family constitution
• Birth history
• History of trauma, separation, illness, abuse etc.
• Quality of family relationships
• Work undertaken to date
• Other agencies involved
• Family’s agreement to referral
• Family’s agreement for us to liaise with Family Front Door/Health Visitor/and any other professional involved

With this information, we will be able to give your referral consideration with the minimum of delay. If we agree that your referral matches our criteria then we will contact the family by letter, with a copy to you. We are always pleased to discuss possible referrals on the telephone.

We can also offer consultation to professionals who are working with the families who feel that it might be helpful to have another perspective.