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About our mental health services (CAMHS)

Our Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) works with young people who are experiencing significant, severe and complex difficulties with their mental health. These difficulties range from feeling low a lot of the time and worrying about lots of things to finding and fitting in with friends, hearing voices, having significant difficulties around eating, self-harming and even considering killing themselves.

Our Getting Help Teams and the Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) also support children, young people and their families who have emerging, mild or moderate mental health difficulties, such as low mood and anxiety, which may be affecting their day-to-day life. These operate in some areas of Berkshire, please see the service page for more information.

Contacting us

If you or your child are having a tough time, it’s important that you seek help. 

For all new referrals please contact our Children, Young People and Families (CYPF) HealthHub by completing our online referral form.

If you need to contact us urgently

If you are having suicidal thoughts or extreme mental health difficulties, or you are concerned about a young person who is, and need to talk to someone now, call our mental health access team on 0300 365 1234, 8am-8pm Monday-Friday (calls charged at local rate).

Outside of these hours, call freephone 0800 129 9999

While we all have difficulties from time to time, our mental health support service is here to support those young people whose difficulties are very distressing and/or seriously interfering with daily life.

We’ll work with you and your child to help reduce the impact these difficulties are having on your lives.

Your key worker or Care co-ordinator

A Key worker or Care co-ordinator is a named person who looks after the overall plan of care and support of a young person. Young people and families can contact their key worker or care co-ordinator to talk about their care. They will look at a young person’s plan every now and again, to check that it’s still the best approach and help keep young people safe, and talk to other professionals who are involved in a young person’s care.

We try to be flexible on where your child is seen and who they are seen by. This sometimes might delay when they’re seen. Staff members will explain who they are as well as what they can and cannot do.

We encourage your child to take an active part in their treatment and express their opinions throughout their time at CAMHS. We’ll provide accurate, appropriate and simple information to help you and your child make choices about care and support. We’ll also provide information about the nature of their difficulties and where to obtain additional information.

Our staff follow guidelines when gaining consent for treatment and to make sure that everyone is well informed of their rights and how your child’s privacy is protected. We’ll explain the possible choices if you don’t agree.

Appointment letters

Appointment letters are digital. You’ll be able to receive a text message with a secure link to your appointment information and be able to confirm or rebook with just one click. Find out more information about digital correspondence here.

We work as a team of mental health professionals and find we provide the best care when we all work together. We won’t discuss information with other people without permission, unless this was specifically related to ensuring your child’s or another person’s safety.

As an NHS service, we regularly send copies of our letters to your child’s GP, or write to them directly, to keep them informed of any mental health needs. If you’d rather your GP wasn’t kept informed, you or your child can discuss this with us.

We're part of a network of CAMHS professionals dedicated to supporting children and young people with their mental health needs. This includes schools, local authorities and GPs.

If you're having mild or moderate difficulties (such as mild depression, moderate behavioural difficulties, school refusal, family relationship difficulties, enuresis, encopresis), there are a number of services across Berkshire that can provide support.

Select your locality to find out what alternative services are available in your area from your Local Offer:

Helpful resources

About CAMHS

What is the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service?
Download - File size: 286KB

CAMHS GP Referrals

Your referral the the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service
Download - File size: 238KB

CAMHS self re-referrals

Your self re-referral to CAMHS
Download - File size: 278KB

Berkshire Healthcare Chaperone Policy

Information on accessing a chaperone
Download - File size: 179KB

CAMHS consent - children and young people

Information on consenting to treatment and sharing information for children and young people
Download - File size: 267KB

CAMHS consent - adult

Information on children and young people consenting to treatment and sharing of information, for parents and carers
Download - File size: 224KB

Little Blue Book of Sunshine - Google download

The Little Blue Book of Sunshine has lots of practical and useful advice to help teenagers with how they’re feeling. Download it on Google.
External web link - https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=dvcOEAAAQBAJ

Little Blue Book of Sunshine - Apple download

Lots of practical and useful advice to help teenagers with how they're feeling. Download it on Apple.
External web link - https://eu-west-1.protection.sophos.com/?d=apple.com&u=aHR0cHM6Ly9ib29rcy5hcHBsZS5jb20vdXMvYm9vay90aGUtbGl0dGxlLWJsdWUtYm9vay1vZi1zdW5zaGluZS1iZXJrc2hpcmUvaWQxNTQ0OTU4NDMwP2xzPTE=&i=NWI3MWUzZGZjYWMyZGExNmI0M2YzMWEx&t=N0J1dFZ3MkRsa0lmMElPU3BZUVdXdC8xSDEwUEY5WW45cHZxUEE1OHlUYz0=&h=fb3b2a5d06ff42918aaaab43f9a4389e

Guide to local mental health services

Local support available in East Berkshire
Download - File size: 811KB