Experiences with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)

Weve had mixed experiences with CAMHS. We had let’s see, the consultant, would it be a consultant? The psychiatrist anyway at CAMHS who prescribed Fluoxetine for [name of participant’s daughter], cause she was, had a very, very low mood. He was really helpful. And she had two different therapists who she worked with one of those, that didnt work at all. And again, he had more of a kind of let’s sit and talk about all of this. Let’s go over it all. And, and she found that very, very distressing and very, very annoying. But she also then had another therapist who just got the measure of her better. And would do things like [name of participant’s daughter] would bring the dog to the appointment. And they would go for a walk with the dog, in the park and just have a chat. And then the dog would come back in the office and sit on the chair while they finished off. And so she was really, I think the difference was that one of them was a very, I don’t really know how to say, I don’t really know how to say it, like a very sort of psychoanalytical kind of you know, wanting to talk about all these things, whereas the one that worked well was a bit more like a mum, you know, kind of a bit more down to earth, a little bit more practical. And so that, that then worked out really well. But we did find there was a couple of things with CAMHS so I don’t think we ever had a letter from CAMHS that used her correct name or pronouns on it, even after we gave them the Deed Poll several times. They just didnt have anything in place for that. They still had the, they still had you know like the toilets. There was a men’s toilet and a women’s toilet. There was just no need. They were single occupancy cub—do you know what I mean? There was nothing. You could tell that they didnt really, you could tell they didnt really know anything about gender diversity and it was really clear.

He had really long hair, which everybody would always go, Oh, you’ve got amazing, beautiful, beautiful hair. And he started to just look more and more uncomfortable. So, I was saying, you know, Why don’t you have your hair cut?’ And he was reluctant and so I just, I just left that, but we went on holiday and I didn’t really notice it on holiday, but when we came back and we were looking at photos, he really did just look like he was so uncomfortable, all the time. So, we talked about it some more and a couple of years ago he did have his hair cut and it was, it was so long and so thick that we actually sent it off to one of the charities that make up wigs, cos it was, you know, it was such a big feature of him that, you know, everyone commented all the time. But once he had his hair cut, he kind of seemed lighter. But he also then started dressing a lot differently. So he’s never really been, not since he was tiny he had never really been fem-, particularly feminine. But then he wanted to start shopping in boys’ shops. And that was absolutely fine. And we just went along with that and we found a shop local to us, they never asked any questions. They didn’t mind what changing room he used. And he felt just really comfortable going there. So he hadn’t, before he told us, he hadn’t worn girl’s clothes for a good couple of years. But as he was starting to develop, which he did quite young, unfortunately. He was just more uncomfortable. So, we got into, you know, how he could kind of hide some of that as well. So, I think just the way he presented was really yeah it was really clear that it was gonna come. My husband and I remember probably about a year before he told us. I remember we were out for lunch and we were saying, you know, we just knew, at that point that it was coming. We just didn’t know when it was coming.

It feels CAMHS has felt a bit disappointing, to be honest because the initial treatment that he was offered, the CBT, nothing to do with being trans just to do with self-harm and his suicidal thoughts. We didn’t feel ever gave him the techniques and support. I contacted them and said, you know, I want to be able to help him. His six sessions are coming to an end. Are their techniques, is there something I can learn, something I can do? But really he was just told to do things like, If you are feeling that way, watch the telly. And stuff like that. So, you know, really unhelpful. And we knew from the school that other people had that experience of this particular counsellor. So, nothing personal, she was a really nice lady. But just wasn’t doing what we needed. So, I think that was a poor experience. We then were told, you’re not gonna get any help. And it’s all, you feel this way just because you are trans. But actually the fact that he is trans, he does need support, even if that were all it were. I feel that he does need support, because his life is more complicated. He has the normal teenage stuff. But he has all that on top as well. So that’s been, that’s been disappointing, so far. We have been, once the GP referred us we had another assessment with CAMHS which was again really upsetting. They told him to try mindfulness colouring, which was amazing. didn’t want to see me even though I had made the initial and I was there, I took time off work. I was there with him. And usually they’ll see me with him afterwards. And we had said how it impacts the family and everything. And that was one of our concerns. But they didn’t want to see me. So, we were expecting nothing from that. And we were like, well, we’ll wait and then we’ll complain and da, da, da. But he has been put on the waiting list. So, that’s a positive. But I am, my concern is that he’ll have his six sessions and then while he’s on the waiting list there doesn’t seem to be anything to keep an eye on him, while he’s on that waiting list.

CAMHS, I feel for CAMHS, cos here we have a service which is massively, massively inundated. My daughter passed through there quite quickly. I think they just wanted, I think CAMHS, from their point of view is there no issue of suicide is there harm, is there danger here if there’s not, we have to concentrate on those. I understand where they’re coming from. The people there were perfectly nice, helpful and friendly. But when CAMHS found out my daughter was actually seeing an expert in the field, privately. I mean I’m in a fortunate position where I can do that – just popped out straight away at the other side of CAMHS and she’s on the waiting list now for [Gender Identity Development Services] and we’ll see what happens there.

When you say that she was popped out, was it?

Discharged.

Okay. And did they make it clear that it was because she was in a private?

No, they said it was a mixture of no particular danger and in private, yeah. Yeah.

I think the difficulty with CAMHS had been partly because we hadnt come out initially and said, This is our problem. And I think because of their cuts in funding they were under time pressure to get us through and they didnt see the necessity for keeping her on. But it was, it was difficult when we were on the waiting list without support. Just desperately wanting to go through it. And at that point she was going through puberty and that was creating an awful lot of stress. I didnt know where to go. And nor did she, obviously.

And at that point we then got the emergency appointment with CAMHS. And at the same time as our referral came through which had basically taken from the September to just on January. It was, you know, [sighs] Id already been flagging it up, which is a bit disappointing and saying how desperate we were, but hey ho [sighs]. And at CAMHS the therapist was very supportive. But I was very aware that they had a very limited timeframe and we did feel very much that we were on a programme of 12 weeks in and out, and you had to be sorted by then. She still hadnt told me at that point what the problem was. Although, I was starting to get a feel for it [sighs]. So, I had begged them, I literally had begged them to carry on keeping her, keeping her on until the next start of (school) year, because I knew trying to get her to go back into school at the start of that year would be horrendous. And they did agree but we were seeing a different therapist at that point. And I don’t know what that after, wed had various incidents where shed had actually picked her up from school to go to her therapist session and she cut herself while in the classroom. So I was trying to alert school and the school were trying to help, but there wasnt very much provision in school going back. So CAMHS eventually, just before the first therapist ended, she told me what the problem was that she was trans. And but she didnt, she couldnt get the courage up to tell the therapist. And I didnt want to circumvent how she actually felt. And eventually we managed to tell the other therapist and I knew that they were supposed to do a referral to CAMHS, not to CAMHS to the (GIDS) adolescent services, but I was told at that point that they didnt handle things like that and we were just basically cut loose and left to float.