Single Point of Access

The NHS Children and Young People's Service (opens new window) provides a single service to all children and young people aged from 0 to 18 years old living in Gateshead who experience mental health difficulties. This includes children and young people who may be living in difficult and challenging circumstances.

Referrals need to go through the Single point of access.

Access to this service is designed to be simple and easy. The criteria for acceptance is:

• the child or young person must be within our age range of 0 to 18 years
• they must either be presenting with some degree of psychological distress or mental health difficulty. This includes children and young people in special circumstances (**) whereby advice, consultation and/or support is being sought
• they must have been seen by the referrer who will undertake an assessment of need prior to referral. This will help us to prioritise cases where necessary
• they must have given informed consent to the referral being made

The Single point of access will offer clinical advice and/or move the referral to the most appropriate service:

• getting help services
• emotional wellbeing team
• North East counselling
• Children's North East
• Kalmer counselling
• Barnados
• or the Getting more help service CYPS

This service was formerly known as CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service).

Services for children and young people with a learning disability are provided through collaboration between the Children and Young People's Services and Community Learning Disability Team.

Services for children and young people experiencing psychosis are provided through collaboration between Children and Young People's Services and the Early Intervention in Psychosis Team.

Our service is able to provide:

• assessment, diagnosis and intervention on a range of mental health issues
• intensive response and home-based treatment for those children and young people whose mental health is causing significant concern
• an intensive Eating Disorder Service to support children and young people on the eating disorder pathway who are at risk of an inpatient admission
• a comprehensive transition support package to those young people who are approaching their 18th birthday and may need continuing support as adults
• training, consultation, support and advice to front line staff working in targeted services for children

The Pathways within CYPS are the:

• Mental Health Pathway
• Neurodevelopmental Pathway
• Learning Disabilities Pathway

Find out more on the NHS Children and Young People's Service website (opens new window).