Community Mental Health Teams

Our aim is to provide services that are user-friendly, accessible, safe, effective and designed around children and young people's needs.

All referrals are triaged and an initial consultation will take place by telephone or video call. This is to ensure a suitable service can be accessed at the earliest opportunity. Children who struggle with the call may be directed to a face-to-face consultation. We aim to identify what the child or young person and their carers want help with and establish a shared understanding of the problem. From here, we discuss the range of alternatives open to them - whether that's signposting, providing strategies they can use to help themselves, or considering an appropriate specialist intervention. Children over 14 will need to verbally consent (where possible). The young person and a representative carer will need to be available for the pre-arranged assessment call.

We deliver person-centred interventions from our clinics across Surrey. Sometimes we see people in other community settings (such as their GP surgery or local wellbeing centre) if appropriate.

Our community teams provide specialist assessment and treatment for children and young people up to the age of 18 who are presenting with a mental health disorder.

The teams are made up of health and social care professionals. The interventions we offer vary depending on the needs of each child or young person and are delivered by the team member most appropriate to their circumstances:

• from health - Clinical Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Family Psychotherapists, Psychotherapists, Clinical Nurses and Dieticians
• from social care - Social Workers

We also perform a consultative role, identifying a child or young person's mental health needs and considering appropriate ways of meeting them in partnership with professionals already working with them.

It's important to us to involve children and young people in the development of our services. They take part in consultations, training and recruitment and undertake a variety of projects to ensure their voice is heard throughout the service.

• The User Voice and Participation (UVP) Team ensures children and young people have their voices heard in the services that they access. The UVP team facilitate a participation group for young people aged 10 to 25 who access mental health services called CAMHS Youth Advisors (CYA). If you’d like to be involved in CYA or for more information contact user.voice@surreycc.gov.uk.

• Young carers (under 18) | Action for Carers

Some young people who have experienced our services share their thoughts on how we've helped them:

“I went to CAMHS from the ages of 15-17, the first few appointments I found it all quite daunting and wasn’t sure what to expect. I quickly built a great relationship with my workers and began to find speaking to them about what was going on for me easier than I expected. I found it helpful that CAMHS and my other workers linked together well and kept me involved and up to date with what the plan for my support was. I'm happy to say I'm now fully recovered and have been off medication and therapy for a year or so and feel without the support I received from CAMHS things would be very different.”
ES aged 19

“I first started going to CAMHS when I was 14, although it was scary at first my worker quickly made me feel comfortable and I was able to open up to her easily. My other workers were really good at communicating with each other and always involved me in decisions and made sure I was comfortable with any changes. They all encouraged me to come out of my comfort zone and try new things whilst giving me constant support when I needed it. Now two years later I’m leaving CAMHS a different and far happier person thanks to them.” 
GB aged 16

“The first time I was told about CAMHS I didn’t want to accept any help as I thought it would make me feel defeated and hopeless, as it meant I couldn’t help myself anymore. Aspects of CAMHS are very challenging, such as being asked tough questions and finding the root of all my problems, but it does help as it made sure I had someone to talk to and who would understand and help me as much, if not more, than I could do alone. CAMHS has made me realise that I am not alone, and I know there is always at least one kind person who I can confide in and trust.”
GH