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What happens at my child’s first appointment?

We’ll usually invite you to our clinic for your child’s first appointment, however there may be times when we’ll complete the appointment in another place, for example a home or school. We’ll talk with you about the best place to meet.

The first appointment will focus around the assessment of your child’s mental health needs. This may take more than one appointment so that we can get a full understanding of your child and their needs. We might have sent you some questionnaires with your appointment letter for you and your child to complete. It’s important that you bring these with you to the appointment because they will help the assessment process.

Children and young people are seen individually and with their parents, carers or families during the assessment, which will be completed by one or two of our team. They will ask you a series of questions to better understand your current difficulties and to get to know your child and family, explain to you how the service works and discuss important issues such as confidentiality.

At the end of the assessment, we’ll talk through what happen’s next. This could involve more sessions with the CAMHS worker who completed your child’s assessment, or being put in touch with another person in the team. Sometimes we will advise that another organisation might be better able to help your child and we will support you to get help from them.

If you are not confident speaking English – even if your child is – we can organise for an interpreter to be available at the appointment.