Being referred to us

We can accept referrals from your GP, school, and in some cases you may be able to make a self-referral. 

Our services have staff members responsible for being ‘on duty’ each day. This means that there will be someone available to answer telephone queries and concerns from young people, parents, carers, and professionals.

The duty worker will check the details in your referral to see whether there are any possible risks to you. If we do have any concerns about an immediate risk to you, or we do not have enough information, we may contact your parent or carer, and any other professionals involved to discuss this and to come up with a plan of care.

Once the duty worker has checked your referral it will be talked about with the wider CAMHS team. We discuss all referrals with the rest of the team to figure out the best way to provide care.

Reasons we may not be able to accept your referral

Sometimes we are not able to accept a referral; this could be for one of these reasons:

• You and your family live in a borough that we do not work in. Take a look at our page, where to find help, to check whether we work with children and young people where you live
• The issues you’re dealing with would be best dealt with by a different kind of service. This could be a specialist team equipped to help deal with complex problems. It could also be because your issues could be dealt with by another counselling service

Whatever the reason is we will write to you and your family, and the referrer to let them know, and suggest an appropriate alternative.

Waiting for a service

Once we accept your referral, we will add you to our waiting list for a first assessment. We may see urgent referrals sooner if we think there is a significant risk to you.