Mental health directory for professionals

If you are a professional worker and you support children or young people in Plymouth, then you may find the following mental health links and resources useful.

The Bereavement Counselling Service (BCS) is a charity that offers specialist bereavement counselling in response to complicated grief and traumatic loss.

Our counsellors are trained to help clients manage a wide range of emotions and responses to loss and bereavement. We help to find a way of coping with life without the loved one and to find a more manageable way to grieve.

The role of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) is to promote the mental health and psychological well-being of children and young people. Almost half of all mental health problems occur before age 14, so making sure the right services, tailored to the needs of younger people and children, are in place to support them is really important.

Livewell Southwest's CAMHS has multidisciplinary teams that offer a high-quality service to all children and young people between the ages of 5 and 18 who are experiencing difficulties with their mental health. This includes mental health nurses, social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists whose priority is to work quickly to provide an effective assessment, treatment plan, and therapeutic support for individuals and their families.

We have dedicated CAMHS teams for different treatment pathways, including at Plym Bridge House, a Tier 4 tertiary unit that supports 12 to 18-year-olds with serious mental illness from across Devon and Cornwall.

The Infant Mental Health Team is part of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.

Infants and young children (up to the age of 5 years) may be referred to the team for a variety of reasons, including actual or potential attachment difficulties, behavioural difficulties in the context of social, emotional, or developmental difficulties, or Child Protection concerns impacting the emotional wellbeing of children.

Intervention/therapy includes observation carried out in both home and educational settings and works with parents to understand their child. This work may take place over a short number of sessions. Psychotherapy is available for longer-term difficulties, which might be located in either the parent or child. In addition, group work such as 'Safety in Numbers' (a therapeutic postnatal depression group) and a parent-infant psychotherapy group are also offered. We also offer consultation to any professionals working with infants and young children, either individually or in groups. The infant primary mental workers also deliver bespoke training to the universal services.

The Infant Mental Health Team focuses on parent-infant mental health, inclusive of early intervention prior to birth. The team is able to respond when a parent or carer is distressed or anxious about their unborn child or new-born, and staff in universal services have been unable to help that parent feel less anxious or distressed. Psychotherapy for expectant women is available in individual or group settings to help them address issues before the birth of their baby.

The CAMHS Neuro-developmental Team (NDT) offers assessments to children and young people aged from 5 to 18 years who are suspected to have autism, ADHD, or Tourette's syndrome. 

These assessments may take place in clinics, at school, or at home. If we are unable to assess a young person in this way, then we may refer them to the Children's Day Programme (CDP). The CPD is an intensive 8-day assessment that occurs 2 days a week, over 4 weeks. The child/young person will attend the CDP on Tuesdays and Wednesdays instead of going to school.

If a diagnosis is made, we offer parenting support and intervention.

The CAMHS Outreach Team (COT) provides the following services:

• A specialist and intense community response to young people between the ages of 5 and 18 whose mental health state requires an urgent response. 
• A full psycho-social assessment of children and young people who have presented via Derriford Hospital Emergency Department within 24 hours, once they have been declared medically fit,.
• Acute assessment and treatment in the community of young people between the ages of 5 and 18 who are currently engaged with the I-TASC team where there is an acute clinical escalation that may bring the team to consider a possible inpatient admission to an adolescent psychiatric unit.

The team provides risk assessments and management plans, intensive input in the community setting, monitoring of the young person's mental state, and also supports the network around the young person. One of the functions of providing intensive support in the community is to prevent hospital admission by educating and supporting the network. This may also include monitoring medication and liaising with doctors.

Childline is a counselling service for young people up to their 19th birthday and is provided by the NSPCC.  They deal with any issues that cause distress or concern; some of the most common issues include child abuse, bullying, mental illness, parental separation or divorce, teenage pregnancy, substance misuse, neglect, and psychological abuse.

Family Matters provides a service to individuals and families who want safe and professional support for their relationship difficulties and who are registered with a Plymouth GP.

Being a parent has never been easy. It can be lonely, frustrating, heartbreaking, and overwhelming.

Life-changing events can happen to anyone. That is why Home-Start is ready to support families through their toughest times.

This could include isolation, mental illness, postnatal illness, money issues, twins, triplets, and multiple children, disability, illness, and when a relationship ends.

Jeremiahs Journey is a Plymouth-based charity that provides free support to children, young people, and their parents or carers who have experienced or are about to experience the death of someone special. 

Currently, we support approximately 350 grieving children each year and have supported an estimated 5,500 children, young people, and their families since our founding in 1996. Nearly a third of the children that we support are bereaved through long-term illnesses, such as cancer. Sadly, almost 50% of those in our care have lost or are facing the loss of a parent. 

Kooth is an online counselling and support platform. 

Our live counselling functionality allows children and young people to receive professional support through either booked or drop-in sessions as and when a session is required. Our qualified practitioners are real people, not bots, with significant experience in working with children and young people.

If you're struggling with how you're feeling, you're not alone. We can all struggle with our mental health at times.

At The Zone, we have a number of projects that can support your mental health.

• You can talk to our youth support volunteers in confidence about how you are feeling and anything that may be worrying you. They are here throughout the week to listen and offer you support. They can also put you in touch with other services or organisations that can help you.
• Our counselling service can support you if you are aged 13-25 and you've been the victim of a crime
• Icebreak can support you if you are aged 16-22 and experiencing severe emotional distress
• Insight can support you if you are aged 18+ and experiencing symptoms indicating the early onset of psychosis.
• We also offer emotional health and wellbeing in schools, providing help and support to students, parents, carers, and school-based staff.

Young Devon is the largest young people's charity in the South West.

Our mission is simply to make Devon a better place for all young people. Each year, we work with over 2,000 young people, building quality relationships to help them thrive.

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• Directory of services for professionals supporting children, young people and their families
• Early years and education
• Parenting and behavioural support
• Mental health support
• Physical health support
• Money and housing support
• Relationship support
• Support group support
• Targeted support
• Work and benefit support

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