Health and SEND

The Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) is an NHS service that assesses and treats children and young people with mental health issues.

The CAMHS Intellectual Disabilities team can help with:

• challenging behaviour
• problems with anxiety
• trauma and grief reactions
• depression
• complex sleep disorders

You can make a referral yourself by using the referral form on the CAMHS website.

You can ask your school, GP, health visitor or other health professionals to refer you.

The Bucks Mental Health Support Team (MHST) supports young people who have emotional wellbeing difficulties, including anxiety and low mood, confidence and self esteem issues. They provide evidence based therapeutic support both individually and in groups to young people and parents.

You can find help and advice for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and mental health issues on the CAMHS website and in the Kooth app. CAMHS also provides link workers to local schools to help support children with mental health issues.

You can read about other mental health support from the NHS.

The NHS website can help you to understand common mental health issues, including:

• anxiety
• sleep problems
• stress
• low mood

The NHS also has general mental health wellbeing tips.

Your GP has experience in helping children and young people with mental health problems. They can refer you to specialist services. You can find a GP near you.

These services and organisations can help parents and carers who are concerned about a child or young person's mental health:

• Mencap: mental health advice for people with a learning difficulty and their parents or carers
• Mental health and autism: advice from the National Autistic Society on mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
• YoungMinds: confidential online and telephone support to anyone worried about the emotional and mental well-being of a child or young person up to the age of 25
• MindEd: advice to help parents or carers identify, understand and support children and young people with mental health issues
• Action for Children: a guide to children's mental health, and how talking about issues can help to prevent long-term problems
• Healthy Minds Bucks helps people aged 18 or over with common mental health problems such as low mood, anxiety, worry, stress, long-term conditions and employment support
• Buckinghamshire Family Information service supports parents, parents-to-be and children and young people from birth to 19, and up to 25 if they have special educational needs or disabilities (SEND).