Child and adolescent mental health services

Specialist community child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) provide assessment, advice and treatment for children and young people with severe and complex mental health problems. CAMHS also provide support and advice to their families or carers.

Services are usually multi-disciplinary teams of mental health professionals providing a range of interventions in the community, working with schools, social care, charities, voluntary and community groups.

Cornwall CAMHS take referrals from any source, including parents or self-referrals. There is a referral form that is sent to a central multi-agency hub based in County Hall in Truro. Each referral is carefully screened by a CAMHS clinician that is referenced to our eligibility criteria. The criteria lists the specific mental health disorders we treat with the thresholds clearly defined. The threshold is based the child global assessment acale. This is a rating of functioning based on a clinician’s assessment of a range of aspects related to a child’s psychological and social functioning. The scale is available as a guide for referrers.

A child or young person with a moderate to severe learning disability can often present with complex behaviours which may, or may not be symptomatic of a mental health condition. These referrals will not automatically access a mental health assessment within the specialist CAMHS service. They will be given to the specialist CAMHS learning disabilities part of the service and offered an appropriate response that acknowledges and understands this complexity.

Children and young people with autism spectrum disorder will only be offered a mental health assessment within CAMHS when there are indications of a mental health condition which go beyond the core features of the primary diagnosis of autism.

A referral that doesn’t meet the threshold for a specialist intervention, but the child has a moderate level of impairment can be allocated to the primary mental health team. These workers are specialists in early interventions in mental health and will offer consultation and advice. They have some limited capacity to offer some solution focussed interventions.

Referrals not suitable for CAMHS are offered alternative resources through our partner agencies via the hub.

CAMHS opening hours

CAMHS offices are open 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.

Mental health support teams

The team in Cornwall are an NHS service which works within school settings to provide early intervention for primary school children who are experiencing difficulties such as low mood and anxiety. They also support education staff in implementing strategies across the whole school to try to ensure that children's wellbeing is supported and promoted throughout school life.

The teams aim to deliver 3 core functions:

1. Delivering evidence-based interventions in schools for mild to moderate mental health issues.
2. Supporting the senior mental health lead in each education setting to introduce or develop their whole school or college approach to mental health and emotional wellbeing.
3. Giving timely advice to school and college staff, and liaising with external specialist services, to help children and young people to get the right support and stay in education.

Currently, our mental health support teams in Cornwall are located in:

• Camel Valley (Bodmin and Wadebridge)
• Caradon
• Isles of Scilly
• Kerrier (Camborne, Redruth and Helston)
• Penwith
• Restormel (St Austell and Newquay)
• Upper Tamar (Launceston and Bude)

Individual schools who sign up to the service are allocated dedicated time from an education mental health practitioner, and we hope to be able to extend our support to more schools in the future as our service grows. Read information for schools (PPTX, 3MB).

Video appointments

We provide video appointments using Attend Anywhere. Join your appointment by video.

Mind Your Way

Mind Your Way helps young people in Cornwall find more information about mental health, emotional wellbeing, and how to get help.

Downloads

• Primary mental health workers guide for professionals leaflet
• Primary mental health workers guide for children, young people and families leaflet
• CAMHS guide for children, young people and parents
• Specialist child and adolescent mental health team leaflet

Resources

• MindEd is a free educational resource on children and young people’s mental health for all adults.
• Young Minds is a charity committed to improving the emotional wellbeing and mental health of children and young people.
• Childline is a counselling service for children and young people.

Media