CAMHS Early Intervention seeks to support young people in developing resilience and preparing for adulthood. This will include support and signposting to any other relevant services. In most cases we still expect a lower-level mental health support service to have been tried first before coming to CAMHS. The service offers a medium-term intervention (of up to 10 sessions). The service is delivered alongside the single point of access and sits in between CAMHS Specialist Services (Tier 3) and Tier 2 community targeted mental health services.

CAMHS Early Intervention service is key in seeking to ensure that children, young people and their carers, who do not meet the criteria for other mental health services, have access to a service that can assess their needs and deliver interventions, if required. This is dependent on the presenting difficulties and in some cases a mental health intervention may not be the primary need. Where this is the case, we will try to give advice and guidance.

The team is staffed by a multi-disciplinary team of mental health professionals, a clinical lead, team manager and administrators.

Referrals can be made to the Single Point of Access for children or young people who present with moderate mental health/emotional health difficulties by a GP or other professional that includes:

• Self harm / suicidal ideation but not intent.
• Phobias – having a moderate impact on functioning, that can be managed at a community level but can escalated to Specialist CAMHS if required.
• Anxiety related presentations that are over and above what is deemed usual for the young person and that require a mental health intervention (eg not a reaction to a social, environmental, sensory or other unmet need that hasn’t been addressed).
• Moderate low mood that doesn’t meet the threshold for a specialist CAMHS service.