Welcome to Forth Valley Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS). The Service has 2 bases:
- North CAMHS: Out Patient Department 3 (OPD3), Stirling Health & Care Village, Livilands, Stirling
- South CAMHS: The Manor, Brown Street, Falkirk
Opening Hours: 9am-5pm Monday-Friday
Late Clinic: 5pm-8pm at The Manor, Brown Street, Falkirk
If you have concerns about a child or young person being at immediate risk out with these hours, contact either your local GP surgery, NHS 24 (dial 111) or go to your nearest Emergency Department.
If you are a young person seeking immediate help with mental health problems, use one of the above options, or contact a counsellor at Childline (0800 1111) or at the Samaritans (08457 90 90 90).
What is CAMHS
CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) is provided by NHS Forth Valley. We work with you to understand your/your child’s difficulties and where appropriate offer therapeutic interventions to help you make the changes you want to make. The team is made up of a range of different professionals and we work together using the skills and knowledge of all the different professionals and disciplines, known as multi disciplinary working. The strength of multidisciplinary CAMHS team-working is that distinct therapeutic approaches can be offered by utilising the different skills of each profession.
Our Staff
Our staff team includes clinicians who have trained as Clinical Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Paediatricians, Nurses, Social Workers and Allied Health Professionals. In addition many people have additional training (please see interventions sections for details). We also have reception, secretarial staff and domestic staff that help support us.
We often have professionals undertaking clinical training on placement with us who are supervised by a qualified member of the team.
Our administrative staff support the Clinicians in all their administrative duties. They are your first point of contact when you telephone in to the Department. They type correspondence, ensure that appointments are sent out and update our systems. They are not able to provide you with advice and guidance as this is the job of our clinical staff, however if concerned they can take a message and speak to a member of the clinical team.
Coming to CAMHS
We ask that referrers provide us with as much information as they can at the point of referral, which helps us decide how to process your referral. If the referral is not appropriate we will write to you and let you know and will do our best to signpost you to a service that is more appropriate.
When we are able to offer you an appointment, we will write to you and ask you to get in touch. It is important that you read this letter very carefully as it will have a contact number for you to phone and arrange an appointment.
If for whatever reason you don’t get in touch, we will write to you again asking you to telephone and make an appointment. If you don’t respond to this second letter we will assume you no longer want an appointment with us and will discharge you and write to the person who referred you to advise.
Older Children: We prefer young people to bring their guardians to a first appointment. We would like to be able to gather information from all family members. If there are things you want to talk about privately with us, without your family present, we will give you the time and space to do this. There are times, if we are very concerned about a young person’s safety, that we have to speak to their parent/guardian. We would always try to let you know how and why we are doing this.
They also provide low intensity and low level interventions for children where milder difficulties have been noted. This means that if you are referred to CAMHS you may be seen by a PMHW if your difficulties have been present for less than 1 year and you haven’t had a lot of support for any other services before being referred to CAMHS. Primary Mental Health Workers work in the same way as other members of the team except that are unable to undertake specialist diagnostic assessments for things like ADHD or children with autistic profiles.
All treatment offered is evidence based so has been researched thoroughly to ensure that the particular difficulty experienced by the child or young person is addressed using the most effective treatment available.
It may be that you will remain seeing the clinician who first assessed you but depending on the presenting difficulties you may need intervention from another member of the team.
Sometimes only a few meetings are needed and sometimes it takes longer. This will regularly be reviewed with you.
- Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT)
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
- Family Based Therapy (FBT)
- Partnership Groups for Parents e.g. ADHD, ASD and SMARTS
- Attachment based therapies
- ADHD monitoring/behavioural interventions
- Medication monitoring
- Mindfulness based therapies
- EMDR (a specialist intervention for trauma)
- Behavioural Family Therapy (BFT)
- Group based interventions
- Speclialist consultations with other professionals
- We will probably ask you and your family a lot of questions. We might ask a bit about you/your child’s school, what you like to do in your spare time, who lives with you and what your likes and dislikes are.
- We will ask what your current concerns are, when you first noticed these concerns and how it affects you (e.g. how it feels, if it has changed how you behave) and other people in your family.
- We will ask you if there are/have been any significant life events happening within the family such as divorce or bereavement.
- We will also ask you or your parent about your early development, like how you managed in nursery or at primary school.
- We will ask what has been tried in the past to help, what has worked and what has not.
- We will ask what changes you would like to make and what your want to achieve from coming to CAMHS. We may also ask about the timing of the referral ie why now, what has changed?
We will always be guided by you/your child as to what you/they feel comfortable talking about and there will be no pressure to discuss anything you are not ready to.
You might want to write things down on a piece of paper to help you remember what you would like to say in the appointment. You might like to write down examples of your concerns, if you have noticed any patterns to your problems, what helps and what doesn’t.
You can bring someone along that you trust for support, if you would like to and you can also take notes.
We will discuss ending your appointments with you, taking into account your feelings and opinions regarding this. Ending an intervention normally happens over an agreed period of time so that you feel prepared to be discharged.
- We asked young people to recommend some sites that they found useful and these can be found on the attached Self Help Guide.
- www.safespot.org.uk – A downloadable App for Android and IOS that was developed by a Child Psychiatrist who used to work in Forth Valley which promotes positive mental wellbeing byfocussing on learning coping skills
- www.youngminds.org.uk – A well respected mental health charity for young people
- www.moodcafe.co.uk – Produced by NHS Fife but has relaxation tools and
- www.ru-ok.org.uk – Mental health charity: Information on relaxation, anger management, etc.
- www.rcpsych.ac.uk/healthadvice/parentsandyouthinfo.aspx – Produced by Royal College of Psychiatrists: Search for leaflets and fact sheets about many subjects from depression to sleep problems
- www.childline.org.uk – For young people and for individuals who are concerned about the safety and well-being of young people. The help and advice section has pages about bullying, abuse, homelessness, suicide and much more. Childline (tel. 0800 1111)
- www.samaritans.org – or 08457 90 90 90
- www.crusescotland.org.uk – Bereavement support also http://www.bullying.co.uk/ : Information for parents and children about different kinds of bullying, legal advice and problem pages
- www.b-eat.co.uk – Online help and support for young people with eating difficulties, including a general helpline and a youth helpline and downloadable information sheets.
- www.handsonscotland.co.uk This website is designed to help you make a difference to children and young people’s lives, by giving you tools to respond helpfully when they are troubled. It is a one-stop shop for practical information and techniques on how to respond helpfully to children and young people’s troubling behaviour, build up their self-esteem and promote their positive mental wellbeing
- www.llttf.com – Living Life to the Full: This is an 8 session course that has been written by a Psychiatrist who has many years of experience using a Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) approach and aims to help young people develop skills in everyday life
- www.incredibleyears.com for behavioural problems or parenting advice
Neurodevelopmental Difficulties (ASD, ADHD)
- www.aspergersyndrome.org
- www.autism.org.uk – National Autistic Society offers information and support
- www.lgbtyouth.org.uk – Advice and on line chat available
Parenting Advice and Support
- www.scottishfamilies.gov.uk
- www.parentlinescotland.org.uk – Free helpline for parents/carers who have concerns about a child or young
- Clackmannanshire & Stirling Council Parenting Coordinator on 01786 233939 or email parenting@stirling.gov.uk
- You may also wish to contact your local nursery or health visitor
Stress Control
- Stress Control Groups: Stress control classes and information are offered across Forth Valley and are available to young people and parents and even NHS Forth Valley staff. Contact FV.stresscontrol@nhs.scot to for more information
- www.stressandanxietyinteenagers.com – NHS Lothian. This site offers support, advice and self-help approaches to coping with the effects of stress and anxiety.
- www.anxietyuk.org.uk – Charity: they provide information on a range of different difficulties. Also have an App & helpline
- www.nopanic.org.uk Help with panic attacks, obsessions and phobias. Has a Youth Helpline.
- www.anxietybc.com although Canadian our young people have found this an excellent website and the downloadable free Mindshift App for young people
- www.ocduk.org Info site for children and young people affected by OCD run by Royal Maudsley Hospital
- www.beatingtheblues.co.uk – offers 8 sessions of computerised cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) programme for depression and anxiety, recommended National Institute of Health Excellence for the treatment of low mood and depression.
- www.safespot.org.uk – Downloadable App for Android and IOS that was developed by a Child Psychiatrist who used to work in Forth Valley which promotes positive mental wellbeing byfocussing on learning coping skills
- www.sleepscotland.org – Sleep counselling for parents and carers of children and young people with additional support needs
Other Resources
Here are some resources freely available on the internet. We have not created these resources. You may be asked to use some of these during your treatment.