Kingston Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS)/Woodroffe Family Adolescent and Child team (FACT)

Our opening hours

Monday – Friday: 09:00 - 17.00

Kingston Tier 3 CAMHS is staffed by people with a wide variety of skills.  All CAMHS clinicians are trained and experienced in assessing and treating children and young people and their families. The list below describes what is different about each CAMHS professional you might meet.

Consultant Child & Adolescent Psychiatrists:

Dr Fiona Grant

Dr Lisa Davies

Dr Grant and Dr Davies are medical doctors who specialise in working with children and young people experiencing emotional, behavioural, and psychiatric difficulties. They assess children and young people and provide medication prescribing and management where appropriate.

Specialty Registrar: Dr Nighat Nadeem

Core Trainee: Dr Raghda Lawash

Clinical Psychologists:

Dr Philippa Sargeaunt

Dr Caroline Ellwood

Dr Nisha Hickin

Clinical Psychologists are mental health professionals who have completed a Psychology degree with additional clinical doctoral level training (non-medical) in the treatment of emotional and behavioural difficulties. They are highly trained in different types of therapies.

Trainee Clinical Psychologist: Iona Bird

Family Therapist: vacant

Systemic Family Psychotherapists have specialist training in understanding and working with the relationships between young people and their families and other important social networks. They can meet with individuals alone or accompanied by parents, carers or other significant members of the young person’s social support system, and they work with these relationships to bring about change.

Clinical Nurse Specialist: vacant

Qualified mental health nurse with specialist child mental health and psychological therapies training.

Assistant Psychologists: Fauzia Cullasy and Orsolya Barabas

Assistant psychologists usually have a Psychology degree and other relevant, non-doctoral training and/or experience in the mental health field. They work under the direct supervision of a Clinical Psychologist. They might help facilitate group sessions, conduct wellbeing calls to those on the waitlist, assist with psychometric testing and assessments and see their own clients for low-intensity interventions, among others. 

Undergraduate Placement Student: Lauren Kinchesh

Service Manager: Peter Maasdorp

Lead Admin: Pat Cann

Admin: Sharon Watkins, Anne O’Brian and Reuben Perrineau

At the first appointment with our service (called Choice Appointment) a clinician will conduct a structured assessment to explore the difficulties the child or young person and their families are experiencing. This usually lasts around 90 minutes. The clinician will then discuss the case with the team. If the child or young person is accepted into our Tier 3 service, a combination of evidence-based, problem-specific clinical interventions are delivered in line with the young person's needs and as agreed with the family through care planning. Interventions are time-limited, targeted and goal-focussed, and treatment progress is reviewed regularly. Children or young people have a named professional as the main point of contact regarding their care and support from our Tier 3 service.

If another team is felt to be more appropriate in supporting the child or young person’s difficulties, then advice and (if appropriate) referral/transfer to this team will be the outcome of the choice assessment.

We aim to facilitate a smooth transition and discharge from the service.

We welcome and appreciate feedback regarding the services we provide: your input helps us to continually improve our services. If you would like to share your thoughts, you can do so directly via the team contact details below or by completing a short Feedback Live form.

Services offered include:

Assessment of moderate to severe mental health conditions, formulation/diagnosis and recommendations for treatment.

Safety risk assessment and risk management plans to support children and young people presenting with mental health difficulties

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT)

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) Skills Training Group Sessions

Family therapy

Psychoeducation and parent work

Medication advice, prescribing, and monitoring

Consultations and network meetings with other professionals

Professionals, parents, carers and children and young people can make a referral to the CAMHS SPA, details about how to make a referral can be found here.

Referrals for children and young people presenting for assessment of neurodevelopmental difficulties (ASD/ADHD) will be screened initially by the Kingston Single Point of Access (SPA) assessment team. If the SPA team find that the child or young person should undergo a more comprehensive assessment, they will refer on to the specialist Neurodevelopmental Assessment Service.

Referrals for children and young people presenting with eating difficulties will be screened initially by the Kingston Single Point of Access (SPA) assessment team. If the SPA team find that the child or young person should undergo a more comprehensive assessment, they will refer on to the specialist Children and Young People Community Eating Disorders Service.

Useful links

Young Minds

For detailed descriptions of what CAMHS do and what to expect in general.

For a description of the CAMHS four-tier system in Kingston, please see the image above.

Crisis Line

If you are a child or young person, or a parent/carer concerned about a young person’s mental health, you can contact the SLP CAMHS Crisis Line on 0203 228 5980, Monday to Friday 5pm – 11pm, and Saturday, Sunday, and bank holidays 9am – 11pm.

SENDIASS

SEND Information, Advice and Support Service in Kingston and Richmond

Kooth

Free, safe, and anonymous support for young people. Includes magazine, discussion boards, journal. mood tracker, and chat support from the team.

Young People’s Drug and Alcohol Service in Kingston and Richmond

Getting It On

Information and services for 13-19 year olds on sexual and mental health issues, drugs & alcohol and relationship problems

The Girl With The Curly Hair

The Curly Hair Project is a social enterprise that helps people on the autistic spectrum and the people around them, founded by autistic author Alis Rowe. They use cool things like animated films, comic strips and diagrams to make their work interesting and easy to understand!