Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) are part of our Specialist Community Mental Health Service, available in six locations across Murrumbidgee Local Health District. The service provides assessments, support and treatments for children and young people (aged 6 - 17 years) experiencing difficulties with their mental health.

Although our CAMHS teams have been serving the Murrumbidgee community for many years, we are currently doing a review of this service and are working with a health consulting agency to write a new Model of Care. The aim of the new model of care is to describe how services should be provided by our CAMHS teams to meet the needs of children, young people and their families.

A Model of Care is an important document which guides the purpose of a service and guides the practice of staff in that service. It sets out what we expect from good quality care, as well as practical things about the service such as referral pathways, operating hours, criteria for admission and the type of treatment and support provided.

It's important to us that we hear from young people and their parents/carers in Murrumbidgee about your needs for mental health care.

By sharing your experiences and suggestions with us, we can understand your needs better and learn what is working well and what could be improved. This will help us make sure that the model of care for CAMHS services addresses the things that are most important to you.

Thank you to the young people and their parents or carers who told us about their experiences over the past few weeks. We are considering the feedback received and will post an update on this project here soon.