Haringey Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service Generic Team

What our service does

Haringey Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) Generic Team is one of four CAMHS teams within Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust. The other Haringey CAMHS teams in the Trust are the CAMHS-LD team, the Adolescent Outreach Team, and the Health and Emotional Well-being Team. There are similar information sheets about each of the three other teams.

Haringey CAMHS (Generic Team) is a multi-disciplinary out-patient service which provides assessments and treatments for children and young people aged 0-17 who are experiencing serious mental health problems or marked emotional and behavioural problems which are complex and enduring and have a significant impact on the child or young person’s functioning.

We provide: urgent and routine assessments, consultations, and short, medium term and longer term interventions.

We offer a comprehensive range of treatments, singly and in combination, including: Family Therapy, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, Parent-Infant Psychotherapy, Specialist Speech and Language Therapy, Parent Consultation, Art Therapy, Medication, Bereavement Groups, Group and Individual Parenting Programmes, Video Interaction Guidance.

Children and young people are seen in various locations: most commonly at our clinic, and sometimes at home or school.

We work in collaboration with the children and young people attending our service, and also with their parents and carers, and aim to provide an accessible, accountable and flexible service. Our work often involves close liaison with colleagues in other services in order to create and deliver integrated interagency care plans.

We also provide CAMHS ACCESS, which is a single point of referral for children and young people with mental health problems. Referrals are reviewed each working day and distributed among the four CAMHS teams in Haringey and to colleagues at the Tavistock Clinic, Open Door (voluntary sector psychotherapy service) and Insight Platform (young people’s drug and alcohol service).

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Where the service is located and the areas it covers

The service is provided for all children and young people in Haringey who meet our eligibility criteria as described below.

Haringey CAMHS is based at St Ann's Hospital:

• H Block, St Ann’s Hospital
  St Ann’s Road
  N15 3TH
• Email: beh-tr.camhsreferral@nhs.net

Referrals:

For advice and queries on referrals, contact Haringey CAMHS ACCESS 020 8702 3400/3401.

• Make a referral to CAMHS (external link)

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Who our service provides for

Age group

Children and young people aged 0-17 can attend Haringey CAMHS (Generic Team). Children aged 0-2 where there are concerns about emotional and behavioural problems or parent-infant relationship issues are initially seen by the Parent Infant Psychology Service (PIPS) team who can then involve Haringey CAMHS (Generic Team) if necessary, as agreed on a case by case basis.

Presenting problems

This service sees children and young people with a wide range of mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, suicidal preoccupations or ruminations, self-harm, psychotic symptoms, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, severe behaviour problems and conduct disorder, complicated bereavement, and ADHD.

We screen young people aged 12 and older with possible autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and where necessary refer them onwards to Great Ormond Street Hospital for diagnostic assessment. Children aged 11 and under have ASD diagnostic assessments at the Haringey Child Development Centre.

Many of the children and young people we see have special educational needs, learning disabilities or autistic spectrum diagnoses but these problems and conditions do not automatically confer eligibility for this service unless the children and young people are additionally experiencing mental health problems of sufficient severity and pervasiveness to meet the threshold for Haringey CAMHS.

Threshold

Children and young people with mental health problems and emotional and behavioural problems meet the threshold for Haringey CAMHS (Generic team) when their functioning is at least moderately disturbed in more than one setting, or severely disturbed in one setting.

Specific groups

Haringey CAMHS (Generic Team) does not provide treatment for London Borough of Haringey looked after children and young people unless they are already known to the service or if there is urgent psychiatric concern. All looked after children and young people have their psychological health needs screened and assessed by the First Step team, based at Bounds Green Health Centre. The First Step team works closely with Haringey social workers to ensure that children’s psychological, emotional and mental health needs are considered in care planning. If further treatment is considered necessary, the First Step team will work with social workers to arrange referral on to the locality CAMHS team. For London Borough of Haringey looked after children resident in Haringey, this is likely to be provided by colleagues at the Tavistock & Portman NHS Trust Fostering, Adoption and Kinship Care team, (FAKCT) also at Bounds Green, via a CAMHS ACCESS referral.

Child Protection

Where the information in a referral suggests that there are child protection issues which need to be assessed, we will ask the referrer to contact the First Response team as a first step, and to re-refer to CAMHS once social care services have assessed and addressed any immediate child protection risks.

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How a young person can start using the service

Children and young people can be referred to Haringey CAMHS by any professional involved with the child, for example, the GP, Social Worker, or SENCO. For referrals from schools, we ask that the SENCO or Head teacher countersign any CAMHS referral to ensure that they are aware it is being made.

A CAMHS ACCESS referral form will need to be completed: this form can be obtained by phoning 020 8342 5934. It is important that the form is completed fully so that we can make an informed judgement about the most suitable service to offer and prioritise for urgency and risk.

Self-referrals are not currently accepted by CAMHS ACCESS, although one of the CAMHS ACCESS partners, Open Door, will accept self-referrals of young people age 12+, who can contact them directly.

Although all of the children and most of the young people who come to CAMHS will be seen with the knowledge and involvement of their parents and carers, older or more mature adolescents who want to be seen without their parents or carers being aware can also come to CAMHS. However where there are potential risks we may need to involve parents, carers or others as part of a safety plan.

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How decisions are made about eligibility for our service

Referrals are reviewed by CAMHS clinicians each working day. Sometimes additional information needs to be sought from the referrer or the family. We use written eligibility criteria to help decide whether the referral meets the threshold for CAMHS, and we decide to which of the CAMHS ACCESS partners we should allocate the referral.

If a referral is not eligible for one of the CAMHS ACCESS services we inform the referrer, the GP and the family / young person by letter, and where possible we will make suggestions for alternative sources of help.

If the referral is passed on to one of the CAMHS ACCESS partner teams (The Adolescent Outreach Team, The CAMHS-LD Team, the Health and Emotional Well-being team, The Tavistock Clinic, Open Door and Insight Platform), we inform the family / young person, referrer and GP by letter, and provide contact details for the service to which we have referred.

If the referral is accepted for the Haringey CAMHS (Generic team), we have recently introduced a new system where an initial appointment is booked at the time that the referral is accepted. This will be within 12 weeks of the referral being received, and may be much earlier depending on the urgency of the problem and the availability of appointments.

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How accessible our service is

We are in keeping with the DDA – and are an accessible service that in most cases brings the team to the child rather than the child to us.

If the parent and child do need to come to a clinic we have disabled parking at the hospital, and most clinics are on the ground floor. Usually we prefer to see children in school or home rather than at the hospital so their routine is not disrupted. We tend to see parents during school hours as most of them need to be available at home for school bus pick up and drop off.

We offer telephone appointments and reviews and parents can phone and leave messages with prompt responses to messages. Urgent issues are addressed a soon as clinician is available. We also need to be accessible to school health and staff that are also managing challenging behaviour during the day at school and they can contact us by mobile, email and via the clinic reception.

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Training our staff have had in supporting children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities

Although Haringey CAMHS (Generic Team) is not a team specifically for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, many of the children and young people attending our service will have additional needs. Staff working at CAMHS have plenty of experience in working with children and young people who have special educational needs and disabilities and will have addressed these issues as part of their professional trainings. Some staff also have additional experience and training with this client group from previous professions.

Haringey CAMHS (Generic Team) comprises clinical psychologists, child and adolescent psychotherapists, family therapists, child and adolescent psychiatrists, speech and language therapists, art therapists, and others. All of the team have post-graduate professional qualifications, several at doctorate level. All are registered with the relevant professional bodies.

All staff have regular continuing professional development training in safeguarding, health and safety, risk assessment, information governance etc.

In addition to its experienced and well-qualified clinical staff, Haringey CAMHS (Generic Team) hosts senior trainees in psychiatry, clinical psychology, child and adolescent psychotherapy, educational psychotherapy, family therapy, speech and language therapy and art therapy.

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Who a service user should contact if they want to raise a concern or complain about something

A service user who wishes to raise a concern or complain about something can contact:

• Patient Experience Managers
  Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust
  P2 Old Audiology
  St Ann’s Hospital
  St Ann’s Road
  N15 3TH
• Email: patient.experience@beh-mht.nhs.uk

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