Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)

We are a service that helps and supports children and young people who are having difficulties around their emotions, behaviour, development or relationships.

SERVICE UPDATE June 2021

We have now secured a new, permanent location for our service at Stopford House, Stockport.

Located in the centre of Stockport, we will be investing nearly £1.4m into Stopford House to develop a safe and inspiring clinical space for children and young people, their families and staff.

The building boasts ample natural daylight, space to deliver all our services and is easily accessible by both car and public transport, with secure car parking also available.

We’ll be gathering ideas and thoughts from children, young people and their families during next month (July) about the new location’s layout and interior design; plus there will be a stakeholder engagement event in September 2021 to show our layout and design proposals.

The design and construction for the new location are expected to take approximately 12 months with the building open to staff and service users from June 2022. A high-level timeline and infographic showing the stages for the project are available here. We will continue to work from our current three locations (Grosvenor House and Central Youth in Stockport, and The Forum in Denton) until the new building opens next year.

Appointments

We currently have longer delays than usual for some of our routine mental health appointments and social communication assessments for children

We have seen an increase in the number of children and young people referred to us and young people are known to us in crisis. Understandably, we have had to prioritise these young people to ensure their needs are met and they are kept safe from any harm.

Also at the start of the Covid pandemic, we had to move from our permanent base at The Treehouse children’s unit at Stepping Hill Hospital. As a result, we have fewer appointments available on a temporary basis and through telephone and video appointments.

We are also operating two small clinics at Grosvenor House, High Street, Stockport and Central Youth, 1 St Peters Square, Stockport. If your appointment is at The Forum in Denton and you do not have your own transport or cannot use public transport, you should discuss your transport needs with your clinician.

Social communication assessment

We unfortunately are unable to provide face-to-face assessments at this current time. To keep everyone safe we all have to wear face masks which impacts on how we record and evaluate face-to-face assessments.

We do have extra support through another provider who will be able to deliver video assessments for some children and young people. If we feel your child would benefit from a video assessment a letter will be sent to you.

Please be assured that we are continually reviewing the waiting list and children and young people will be offered an appointment as soon as one becomes available.

Information on local resources, services and online self-help for both young people and families is available on our website.

In addition, further information and support are also available in Stockport through:

• The Children's Emotional Health and Wellbeing Advice page on the Local Offer - a range of support services and information.
• Kooth.com - a free online counselling service for children aged between 11-18 years. They offer counselling support the same day a child/young person makes contact and they offer a variety of tools to help build up resilience and support emotional wellbeing.
• Parents and Carers Together Stockport (PACTS) is our parent carer forum. They offer support to parents/carers as well as recorded online webinars by professionals on a range of topics (including emotional wellbeing) to help families.

INFORMATION ABOUT CAMHS

You could be coming to see us for many different reasons. It may be that you’ve been feeling sad or frightened, lonely or upset in some way. Of course, it’s normal to feel like this from time to time but sometimes these feelings can begin to affect you, your life, or your family.

What's it like visiting CAMHS?

Watch a short clip explaining what we do and how we help you.

Some of the other problems that we can help with include:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Eating disorders
• Psychosis
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Self-harm
• ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)
• ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder)
• More complex psychological difficulties

We will work with you to talk about your thoughts and feelings so that you can feel better. The person you’ll see, and the type of help you’ll receive, will depend on the problems that you have and who can best help you and or your family.

The team is multi-disciplinary, which means our clinicians come from a range of clinical and professional backgrounds. This may include psychiatrists, nurses, social workers or psychologists amongst others.

We will make sure that you see someone who can help you and will talk about this with you and your family when we first meet you. We offer lots of different types of treatment, like family or group work, a session with just you and your health worker or medication.