CAMHS Crisis: ‘My children have been waiting for mental health care for 5 years – I’m afraid they’re not safe’

Roanne Brewer says she waited five years to see a psychiatrist for her two children. At the time, she was so concerned about the self-mutilation of her son and daughter—they are 15 and 11 years old respectively—that she regularly stayed up all night to stay awake.

Two of her children have been diagnosed with autism and ADHD. Her son was first referred to Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (CAMHS) in 2018 but was discharged after three sessions.

Brewer says the reason the team reported was because they said they “couldn’t provide what he needed.” A year later, he was expelled from school, which meant he was taken out of school and forced to study at home., and a second referral to CAMHS was made, but the East Sussex family has since been awaiting another referral.

“My kids are a classic example of what’s called ‘ghost kids’, kids who got kicked out of school,” says Brewer.

“About once a year [CAMHS] Tell me my son is still on the waiting list, that’s all. It was a year-long struggle with local authorities to get certain services.”

Despite her best efforts, her son has been out of school for three years, and now both children are homeschooled. She also used the services of private psychiatrists – at her own expense.

But as a single mother, Brewer struggles financially. “I just got a £400 gas bill but as I told the gas company I can’t turn off my gas because I have kids who go to school here during the day,” she says.

“I fought tooth and nail for what we have now, and we have nothing. It only keeps me from dying so I can keep looking for what they need. You will be thrown out of society. I can’t work, I don’t get any services. It’s like just screaming into the void.

Between April and June 2021, 190,271 people under the age of 18 were referred to CAMHS, up 134 percent from the same period last year.

This growing demand, coupled with CAMHS funding, has left many young people waiting months or even years for help during the crisis.

While the government pledged an additional £1.4bn over five years in 2015, an analysis by the charity Young Minds found that by 2020, less than half of the CCGs that responded to their Freedom of Information (FOI) requests were able to provide complete details of their CAMHS Budgets.

Between March 2020 and March 2021, 300 children in Coventry and Warwickshire waited over 149 weeks (according to FOI).

In counties such as Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire, the maximum waiting time was over a year. And in Berkshire, between March 2019 and March 2020, 45.6% of applications to CAMHS were rejected.

Many other young people do not reach the help threshold but are rejected by the GPA. And many other parents, like Brewer, struggle to find help for their children.

David Smith’s 11-year-old son* was first spotted by CAMHS in December 2022 after a two-year wait. Smith has two adopted children and says his teen has suffered “adoption trauma.”

Smith and his partner “understood that the service was under enormous pressure” but still struggled to cope while waiting for their support.

“It was frustrating not to know where the end was. It wasn’t just about holding out for another month. We’ve had difficult times trying to figure out what’s best for you, but you really didn’t have the tools or resources you need to help your child,” he says. I.

The lack of routine during the Covid lockdown has been a problem for her son. “The nature of the pandemic exacerbated what was happening,” says Smith. His son began exhibiting destructive and disruptive behaviors such as lighting matches in the middle of the night.

So why do parents struggle to see their children? Dr. Rachel Ambrose, who left CAMHS last year after 20 years on the job, says the pandemic has made early intervention more difficult and exacerbated mental health issues for many young people. “Now waiting lists just mean kids are on it for so long that kids don’t get the early intervention they need.”

Dr. Ambrose says the pandemic has made it possible for many children to hide what is happening, and mental health services can no longer rely on information being relayed to them from schools when students are at home.

She says that for people with eating disorders, “young people sometimes found it much easier to hide their weight loss. They had baggy clothes in their bedrooms, so no one packed their things.

Many of the recommendations adopted by CAMHS are not only what parents say, but what schools perceive as a triad of information. Due to the pandemic, we have not received this information.”

But the crux of the problem, says CAMHS nurse Dr. Annie Cox, is that the service needs a bigger budget. She trained as a nurse in 1997, but says it’s one of her most overburdened periods of service. “I don’t think there are CAMHS professionals who work their hours and go home. We all work well, many of them for free.

“Many are assisted by clinicians who are doing their best to try and do the best we can. People are losing trust in the system because they think there is no one there and we are not trying, but all the people I work with are hard at work. They want to make a difference.”

Dr. Ambrose agrees that it can be difficult to turn down a job. “The pressure is huge and the turnover is very high,” she says.

Dr. Cox fears the service will see even more withdrawals over the next decade as the effects of the pandemic and transfer denials come to light.

This is the representative of the National Assembly I“The pandemic has inevitably taken a toll on people’s mental health, and the latest data shows that the NHS is now treating more young people than ever before. In response to this demand, the mental health workforce continues to grow, and more than 2,000 trained mental health professionals have been deployed to schools for additional and early support. So, as always, reach out if you need help.

*Names have been changed