Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services
mental health care service in the UK
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) is the name for care provided by the NHS and other organisations in the United Kingdom for children, generally until school-leaving age, who have difficulties with their emotional well-being or are deemed to have persistent behavioural problems. The service is also known as Children and Young People's Mental Health Services (CYPMHS). CAMHS offer children, young people and their families access to support for mental health issues from third sector (charity) organisations, school-based counselling, primary care as well as specialist mental health services. The exact services provided may vary, reflecting commissioning and providing arrangements agreed at local level.
Background
Worldwide in 2021, one in seven 10-19 year-olds have mental health problems, with approximately 14% of adolescents experiencing depression, anxiety, and behavioural disorders. In 2020, it was reported that one in six 5-16 year olds in England had a probable mental health difficulty. One in five children and young people aged 8-25 in England had a probable mental disorder in 2023. The restrictions as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted on the mental health of children and young people.
Tiers framework
Since 1995, UK CAMHS have largely been organised around the four-tier framework:
Tier 1
mental health promotion, ill-health prevention work, and general advice and treatment for less severe problems by non-mental health specialists working in universal children's services, such as GPs, school nurses, social workers, and voluntary agencies.
Tier 2
usually CAMHS specialists working in community and primary care, such as mental health workers and counsellors working in clinics, schools and youth services and providing services for children and young people with 'common' mental health problems such as mild-moderate anxiety and depression.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5097815. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2021, 2020, 2023 and 1995.
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This entry incorporates text from “Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.