We’re changing the way we work, so that we can continue to improve on the mental health services we provide to Oxfordshire’s children and young people.
As part of these changes, we’ve put together a single point of access to get support from Oxfordshire’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), to replace the old system where there were individual referral processes for each service.
Instead, the Oxfordshire Single Point of Access is a single email and phone number to access any of Oxfordshire’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)including our mental health services, school and community in-reach support. The SPA can also support parents/carers and professionals who would like to discuss a possible referral, or just make an enquiry.
The number of the SPA is 01865 902515 (during normal working hours). You can also email OxonCAMHSSPA@oxfordhealth.nhs.uk or visit https://www.oxfordhealth.nhs.uk/camhs/oxon/ for detailed information about our services, including our online referral form which you can use to access our services.
One of our singe point of access administrators will answer and triage your call, and will pass on the call to our single point of access clinician when this is needed. In every case, our aim is to respond to your enquiry promptly. For referrals made through out online referral form, as well as written or emailed referrals, we aim to respond within 12 working hours. It may take us up to 3 days for more complex cases, but after three days, please do feel free to call us if you have any concerns that your information has not been received.
Working with schools
Oxford Health’s school in-reach services already work closely with the county’s state secondary schools, but we’re keen to further support schools in looking after their students’ health and well-being: we will continue to offer more specialist training where this is needed, so please do get in touch with us (via your school in-reach worker, or via our single point of access) if you feel that you are a school staff member who’d like to know more.
As part of the changes we’re introducing to provide better mental health support to Oxfordshire’s children and young people, we’ll be working more closely school health nurses, the locality community support services and school staff to help schools produce a tailored school health improvement plan within the first six weeks of each term.
We will continue to offer up to four hours per week of support to each of Oxfordshire’s secondary school. We also offer schools focus/participation groups and learning sessions, run by our experienced participation leads: these groups help raise awareness and create resilience within school communities.
We will also provide primary school staff free training delivered by Oxfordshire Youth, one of our new partners. This change will make these sessions available to many more schools.
Allocation of workers to schools
Two of our health workers service each locality (North, Central and South Oxfordshire), and will work with individual secondary schools.
Primary schools and colleges can use our SPA, and can also get in touch with school in-reach staff.
Community In-reach
We’re keen to work with the local community in Oxford, and one of the changes we’ve made is to work with six new partner agencies:
Together, our partners cover all parts of Oxfordshire, and our dedicated community in-reach worker will work closely with our partners.
Our in-reach workers are trained in a variety of therapies. and they use lower level, conversational approaches to support young people.
By combining these approaches with the work our partner charities already do to promote mental health, we aim to reach many more people, make our services more accessible, and help young people become more resilient and confident.
We may signpost you to one of our partners if we feel they would be best suited to help you.
If more intensive help is needed, our community in-reach workers can also help young people access our CAMHS teams for assessment and review.
Getting Help
We have also set up a new team called Getting Help, to provide good quality support in a timely manner.
Getting Help will work with young people who need quick, short-term support (around six sessions).
This help could take the form of participating in a group, online CBT therapy or individual one to one therapy.
We’ll make sure to discuss all therapeutic interventions with the young person and their parent/carer, to make sure that this is the right approach for the individual.
We can also sign post to our partners, and re-refer to our services is more intensive support is needed
Our getting more help pathway also offers more long-term support to anyone needing help with more complex and longer-term mental health needs.
Find out more about our specialist services including support for neurodevelopmental conditions, family assessment and safeguarding, support for high-risk young people and many more on our dedicated website for children and young people.
Published: 18 May 2018