Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) West

The CAMHS West team sees children and young people where there are concerns about their emotional, psychological wellbeing or mental health. If it is felt that we are the right service for you, we will work in collaboration with you and other services which may be involved in your care, to ensure we support you to achieve the best outcomes.

We use a predetermined set of outcome measures (questionnaires) to fully understand how we can best support you. We use outcome measures to support us in using the most effective therapy. These will be constantly reviewed and updated throughout your care to ensure we continue to offer you the most appropriate support to meet your needs.

We have a specialist team that are able to offer a wide variety of evidence based treatments which will be tailored to your needs. The team is made up of mental health nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, support workers, psychiatrists, psychologists and specialist therapists such as CBT therapists and child psychotherapists.

We will be able to explain and discuss possible options with you at your appointments and talk with you about the estimated length of any treatment.

We cover all of West Somerset and our base is in Taunton.

Who can refer and how to do it

Any professionals involved with children meeting the inclusion criteria can contact the service. Young people and families can ask their GP or other professionals to refer.

Referrals need to be submitted via the Single Point of Access (SPA for Somerset).

Requests for support from Specialist CAMHS will be considered where children and young people are experiencing the following difficulties:

• Anxiety (Over and above what is normal for the young person which may also be different for neurodevelopmental children)
• Depression
• Eating disorders
• Obsessive compulsive disorder
• Psychotic symptoms
• Severe phobias
• Post-traumatic stress disorder
• Tics/Tourette’s that have a moderate to severe impact on functioning (+ over 12 months in duration)
• Mood effective disorders
• Emerging emotionally unstable personality disorder

Exclusion criteria:

• Children and young people who have a ‘normal’ reaction to life events for example bereavement / divorce
• Children and young people whose problems appear to be entirely environment related for example have a different symptomology/presentation in different settings
• Children and young people whose parents are in legal dispute about residence/contact etc except where there is a clear mental illness risk
• Attachment disorders
• Learning disability and Autism where there is no additional mental health need that meets these criteria
• Behavioural difficulties for example oppositional defiant disorder/conduct problems

Type of provision

Specialist - This is for a small group of people with significant special educational needs and disabilities and their families