Calderdale Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) Tier 3 - South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

Our GP referred my daughter to CAMHS following a prolonged period of anxiety and self harming. We were told, over the phone, that the self harming was not serious enough to warrant support and that we should try accessing free support from a local charity for young carers. We then paid for our child to have private therapy for her anxiety. The therapist helped enormously, but recommend that our daughter be assessed for autism as she felt this was the route cause of her anxiety. The GP agreed and referred her to CAMHS for an assessment. This was rejected by CAMHS as her school did not see evidence of autism - against NICE guidelines recommendations on autism assessment. We are now awaiting a private assessment, but CAMHS would not recommend any private services or confirm whether they would offer any support based on the finding of this assessment. The team have been very unhelpful and unsupportive throughout this whole process and I am appalled that they are now claiming that their autism assessment process is much improved in the local press.

i have 3 kids will suicidal thoughts and self harm and CAMHS done a report saying help needed but didn't offer the help or ref to other places

My son was referred by school to Camhs in may 2016 assessment took place September 2016 all good. They referred him to tier 3 finally got seen last wk October 2018 after several phone calls. Went back to have a review meeting after waiting for an hr no-one taking any notice I asked how much longer was we to wait, to find out the person we was seeing was off sick and wouldn't be in the rest of the wk, and she'd be hoping to to sort appointments out for mid November.

Due to poor funding my child with social anxiety cannot be treated due to the time it will take to gain her trust to enable her to engage well. Diagnosed social anxiety and agoraphobia only to change this during a meeting with school, then said my child is picking when she will/won't engage. No understanding of how anxiety fluctuates I. E good and bad days. Child discharged and cannot leave the house. She is signed off as unfit for school but isn't getting any help. Very poor service

I’m a professional and have made referrals for families I Work with which have been closed without any assessment despite strong evidence that a mental health condition is present. It seems they just want to pass the cases into other services due to under funding and too many cases. Staff agreed full assessment was needed then senior staff closed the case. A year later another referral has been made asking for a full assessment

My ASD diagnosed son has been increasingly violent. In summer when he was diagnosed I told them this but was told they were discharging him as he "just" had ASD and no other MH conditions. The only other thing they would do was referred to ASD team at school. So now 6 months later it is worse, every day my partner and I get spat at, kicked and hit, hair pulled, verbally abused etc. In desperation I emailed "camhs first point of contact" . It's several days later now and they haven't had the courtesy to email me back, not to sign post or anything, not even auto reply. I know it is the Christmas period but everyone knows that is one of the most stressful times of the year for people with MH issues. Absolutely disgusting.

My child experienced a severe bout of depression, the challenges and barriers we experienced to access CAMHS service was appalling and very worrying as a parent. Referral methods were limited to GP referral whereas any professional should of been able to do so. My child's treatment was delayed by 8 weeks and this time delay was significant in terms of keeping my child safe and other family members. This time delay caused our family into crisis mode. If my child had broken their leg, then health services would undertake a course of treatment immediately ,the same attitude needs to apply to mental health. Staff members rarely returned phone calls. The whole service needs to be reassessed cause it is failing young people and their families. Early intervention with any course of treatment proves higher success rates and this needs to be applied to this service.

My son was referred for CAMHs through our GP and we never heard from them. Were told they were very busy.

14 year old Daughter was referred to camhs tier 3 as a result of mental health issues including odd eating patterns, self harm and claims to undergoing psychotic events. At initial assessment we flagged up our belief that she probably had ASD but firstly they treated her for eating disorder, then when her self harming escalated, they blamed parents for causing this and digested attachment disorder was the problem. When finally she had been hospitalised for a paracetamol overdose (having been hospitalised several times over 7 months for severe self harm) and placed on suicide watch, she was assessed and diagnosed as autistic.

We were refered when my child age 5/6 regular meetings her school setting failed and new setting ? asd so refered we waited from year 5 unril start yr 7 I telephoned 3 times after diagnosis for support and was told we now had diagnosis so needed no support now !! We were/are desperate how can 5 years of support stop with a label ?
In December 17 we were refered to ADHD screening and mental health as my daughter had suicidal thoughts and self harming she received 6 weeks CBT and was discharged but refered to a adhd specialist and we are now in June and have heard nothing I've telephoned and been told it's and long process