We provide assessments and care in the community to children and young people who are referred to Specialist CAMHS and who have severe mental illness and complex needs.

You’ll first be invited for an initial meeting called a choice appointment with Specialist CAMHS, where we’ll talk about the difficulties you’ve been having, what you’d like to change and how we might help with this. Your practitioner will then refer you to the CITT team.

We aim to meet you for a first face to face assessment within 5 working days of discussing your referral as a team. Following this first session, we can complete a more thorough assessment for very complex needs over six weeks if there is a need for a diagnosis.

We will work with you to create a care plan about what to expect from your treatment, how you can look after yourself and the goals you would like to achieve. We will also deliver therapeutic interventions based on your needs.

We will work with you until you are stable and can be stepped down to Specialist CAMHS, Primary Mental Health or Adult Mental Health Services for the next stage of your emotional wellbeing journey. This is a good thing as it means that you are making progress towards your goals and are ready for the next step.

We are based at St David’s Hospital in Cardiff but we work with children and young people in their local community.

Our team supports children and young people up to their 18th birthday who are already working with Specialist CAMHS and who suffer with mental health disorders that require more intensive assessment and intervention.

We do not:

• Assess anyone over 18 years
• Assess children / young people in the absence of a mental illness
• Assess children / young people where the primary problem is due to use of psychoactive substance and / or social problems
• Assess children / young people as an emergency before a referral has been discussed in team meeting

This is a specialist service that can only be accessed by referral from Specialist CAMHS practitioners and CAMHS Inpatient Services.

If our team can help meet your needs, you will first be invited to a full Specialist CAMHS assessment known as a choice appointment.

We work 9 am – 5 pm, Monday to Friday.

We support young people aged 11-18 years who are struggling with their emotional wellbeing by connecting them to opportunities in their local community.  

Our Community Connectors get to know the young person by listening to their needs, discussing the challenges they may face and identifying goals they want to work on.  

We then work together with the young person to create a plan to help improve their wellbeing by connecting them to local groups and activities. This could include: 

• making new friends,  
• volunteering,  
• exercising,  
• getting out in nature or  
• exploring new hobbies.  

We will have an initial phone call with the young person to make sure: 

• We are the right team to support them 
• The young person fully understands what we are offering, and  
• The young person wants to participate  

We will then meet the young person regularly over a 12-week period. 

Our community connectors can help by: 

•  providing their knowledge about local activities,  
• supporting the young person to attend any groups or activities,  
• helping them to identify and overcome challenges to their emotional wellbeing.

We are based in St David’s Hospital in Cardiff. 

However, we will meet young people online, in their schools, at home or in their local community – wherever they feel safe and comfortable. 

The service is for 11 to 18-year olds who are experiencing low-level challenges to their emotional wellbeing.  

This could include social isolation, low-level anxiety, bullying or low self-esteem. 

We do not meet with any young person who is experiencing more complex or severe mental health issues. 

Currently, a request for support needs to be made to the Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health Single Point of Access team for a young person to access Community Connections.  

Referrals can come from professionals in health and social settings such as GPs, social workers, head teachers and school nurses. 

If the Single Point of Access thinks that our team could be beneficial  for you, you will be invited for an initial phone call to talk about your needs, goals and whether Community Connections is the service best placed to work together with you on these.  

We work 9am – 5pm, Monday to Friday. 

We provide mental health assessments for young people in hospital, GP surgeries and custody suites.

An assessment is a chance for a young person to talk with a practitioner about what they’re feeling, the impact on their life and what goals they want to achieve. We will complete this assessment within 48 hours of the referral.

After the assessment, we will talk to you, your family and anyone who’s been involved with your care about next steps. This could include:

• Directing you to other services
• Intensive follow up support with the Crisis Liaison Team
• Admitting you to supportive accommodation or a CAMHS or Adult Mental Health Services in-patient facility

We’ll also tell the person who referred you to us what happened and what we have recommended to you.

We’re based at St David’s Hospital in Cardiff, but we will go to the young person experiencing a mental health crisis to assess them and come up with a plan.

The service is for children and young people up to their 18^th birthday who present in crisis (have an emergency mental health issue). We only assess people aged over 18 if it is identified in their transition plan to Adult Mental Health Services.

We will not assess young people under the influence of drugs and / or alcohol.

We will only assess children and young people undergoing medical intervention for physical health problems if they are also having an emergency mental health need and are at risk to themselves or others

This is a specialist service and can only be accessed via referral from a professional or partner organisation. This includes:

• Accident and Emergency departments
• Hospital wards
• Police and staff working in custody suites
• Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health services
• GPs

The Crisis Liaison Team works from 9 am – 9: 30 pm 7 days a week.

When we receive your referral, we’ll start by inviting you by letter or telephone for an initial meeting called a choice appointment.

We’ll talk about the difficulties you’ve been having, what you’d like to change and how we might help with this.

We’ll also talk about how you and your family’s strengths and skills may help the situation. We’ll talk to you about how we will work together on the difficulties you’re facing and the goals you want to achieve.

After the choice appointment, we’ll assign a practitioner to lead your care that has the skills and experience to meet your needs.

We’ll ask you to attend sessions once or twice a week to start with, so that we can talk to you about what’s going on with you and keep an eye on your physical wellbeing through regular weighings and medical checks.

The support you receive in your sessions will vary depending on what you need. We have a Family Therapy pathway that involves your family members in your care, and an Enhanced Cognitive Behavioural Therapy pathway that is adapted for your individual needs.

We have strong connections with staff at Adult Mental Health Services, University Hospital Wales, and Ty Llidiard. Even if you experience a change in your care, such as transitioning to Adult Mental Health or needing to stay in hospital to look after your physical health, we will continue to support you and be part of your care.

We’re based at St David’s Hospital in Cardiff.

This is a specialist service, accessed via Specialist CAMHS, and can only be accessed via referral from a professional or partner organisation. This includes:

• Accident and Emergency departments
• Hospital wards
• Police and staff working in custody suites
• Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health services
• GPs

This is not a crisis service.

If you are working with us and need to get in contact, you can call 02921 836795 between 9 am and 5 pm, Monday to Fridays (excluding bank holidays).

Our address is St David’s Hospital, Cowbridge Road East, Cardiff CF11 9XB

The first level of support we offer is attending our Nuturing Attachment Group. We also offer telephone consultation slots once per month for one off initial consultations for social workers and healthcare professionals.

The second level of support is offering more consultation sessions to foster carers or social workers followed the initial telephone consultation. This can include one off home visits or schools observations to help us understand the child and to help us formulate, with the system around the child, about what is going on for them.

At the next level we offer team formulation to help the system around the child better understand what is going on for them at that time. We also offer longer term pieces of consultation work as well as reflective practice sessions. At this level, graduate mental health workers can offer play based sessions where they work directly with the child.

The final level involved DDP-informed therapy with the child and their foster / kinship carer. This involve the child and at least one significant other having therapy together to improve communication and trust. We are currently only able to offer the DDP informed therapy to a small number of children and their foster carers.

For more information about the support offered by Enfys, click here.

We are based at St David’s Hospital but we work with children and their foster / kinship carers in their home, school and community.

Any adult in a ‘looked after’ child’s life can request our support.

To do this you need to have a conversation with a member of the team. We offer a variety of ways and times to have these conversations every week. If you are unsure of when and how best to contact us please email us and we can then arrange a time to talk.

Please email us on: enfys.cav@wales.nhs.uk

We do not accept paper ‘referrals’ unless we have pre-arranged with you that this is the way to communicate with us (e.g. a child is known to the team and you are requesting we support something new).

When emailing us it is helpful for us if you include the following:

• Place of Work e.g. Cardiff Social Services
• Your role
• Full Name
• Contact number
• Team e.g. LAC, 15+ etc.
• Name of young person
• DOB of young person

If you are emailing from a personal email account, please do not include any identifiable data about the child.

Please email us on: enfys.cav@wales.nhs.uk

We offer group and one-to-one sessions to develop personal resilience and strategies to help maintain emotional wellbeing. These opportunities allow family members to meet others and share experiences with others who are facing similar challenges.

For parents and carers there is a six-week engagement programme including one-to-one support sessions and six weekly sessions in a group setting.

Siblings can access six weekly group sessions with age appropriate activities with a craft-based focus and will allow opportunities to strengthen identity and emotional understanding and discover ways to self-regulate whilst engaging in fun sessions.

Siblings aged 13+ will have a chance to engage in State of Mind, a programme exploring mindfulness and wellbeing

TBD

This team supports parents and carers of children and young people aged 0-18 with mental health difficulties, as well as siblings aged 7-18.

If your family member is working with one of the other emotional wellbeing services listed here, their practitioner will be able to complete a referral to Platfform for Families for you if you ask.

You can also make a self-referral or contact us directly using the details below.

You can contact Platfform for Families in the following ways:

• Contact Lynne Jones on 07423 694 560 / 01656 647722
• Email families@platfform.org
• Make a self-referral via this online form

When we receive your referral, we’ll start by inviting you for an initial meeting we call an assessment. This is a chance for us to get to know you and understand what’s going on in your life.

We’ll do this by asking you questions about your experiences at home, school and with your family and friends. You can also ask us questions. Together we will decide what the next best step is for you.

You may find that this initial meeting is all that you need. We may also signpost you to an appropriate service or work with you directly for a short time if that is what you need. We may also decide with you that a few sessions with us would be helpful.

Most of our team is based at St David’s Hospital on Cowbridge Road East, Cardiff CF11 9XB.

Our community teams work with and in local schools, so you may be offered an appointment at your school.

We also have teams working with the local early help services. They may see you at your home or in your community.

We currently only accept referrals from professionals, such as a GP, health visitor or social worker.

If you are working with us and need to get in contact, you can call 02921 836795 between 9 am and 5 pm, Monday to Fridays (excluding bank holidays).

Our address is St David’s Hospital, Cowbridge Road East, Cardiff CF11 9XB

We work in every secondary school across Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan, including Pupil Referral Units and Out Of School Tutoring Services.

We attend termly prioritisation meetings with education staff in secondary schools where we discuss the needs of individual learners, staff and the school as a whole.

• Education staff already know the young people in their setting and may have trusted relationships with them. Our team learn a lot from hearing what is going on in school, what is working well or has already been tried and where there may still be some challenges. This helps us to understand what else might help. Other professionals, such as school nurses or educational psychologists may also be part of these meetings so that a plan of support can be made to provide the right help at the right time.

• From these prioritisation meetings, we offer training, resources and consultation to education staff. These could focus on helping a particular young person or helping the setting to deliver a positive, mentally health environment for all learners and staff.

• We may also provide a whole system assessment to the young person and their family to inform whether direct work (ie. joining a group or 1-2-1 sessions) would also be helpful.

• We offer consultations, groups about emotional literacy and access to our locality wide training to primary schools.

We are continuing to develop our offer in response to the needs of schools, learners and staff across Cardiff and the Vale.

We are based at Ely & Caerau Children’s Centre, but our staff spend most of their time visiting the schools in their community, working directly with learners and staff.

All secondary schools in Cardiff and Vale can request support from their locality In-Reach team. For more information on the localities please see our first newsletter.

Sign up to our newsletter to get the latest updates on School In-Reach developments.

A significant portion of our work is working with education staff to deliver training, consultation and reflective practice as part of providing a whole school approach to emotional and mental wellbeing.

This work benefits learners and staff working in the education setting, even if young people do not directly work with one of our practitioners.

It may be that School In-Reach is best placed to support the learner, but the In-Reach practitioner may feel support is best provided by another service or organisation.

It could also be that the In-Reach practitioner works to build the capacity and confidence of those already involved with the learner, rather than introducing another person.

We encourage schools and other education settings to contact their named practitioners directly.

Education staff can also contact School In-Reach on schoolinreach.cav@wales.nhs.uk

Life can be tough for children and young people. There’s pressure from school, home and friends on top of everything else. It’s normal to feel lost and overwhelmed – your school nurse is there to listen and talk to you about anything that’s on your mind, including:

• Your emotional wellbeing and how you’re feeling
• Keeping healthy – physically, emotionally and sexually
• Sexual health
• Changes to your body
• Bullying
• Drugs and alcohol
• Vaccinations and immunisations

We also offer the Chat Health service. Any young person aged 11 – 19 years old can text their school nurse for confidential advice and support. You can ask them about anything you’d usually speak to your school nurse about in person.

Our school nurses spend most of their time in schools working with young people.

School nurses visit their schools every week. Ask your teacher or school wellbeing lead on how to see your school nurse.

Any young person can speak to their school nurse, either through school or via the Chat Health texting service. To message a school nurse via Chat Health, text 07520 615718 between 8:30 to 4:30 pm on Monday to Fridays (excluding bank holidays).

If you are working with another service, you can also continue to see your school nurse at the same time.

Ask your teacher or school wellbeing lead on how to see your school nurse.

To message a school nurse via Chat Health, text 07520 615718 between 8:30 to 4:30 pm on Monday to Fridays (excluding bank holidays).

When we receive your referral, we’ll start by inviting you for an initial meeting called a choice appointment.

We’ll talk about the difficulties you’ve been having, what you’d like to change and how we might help with this.

We’ll also talk about how you and your family’s strengths and skills may help the situation. We’ll talk to you about how we will work together on the difficulties you’re facing and the goals you want to achieve.

We’ll create a care plan so you know what to expect from your time with us and what we expect from you.

After the choice appointment, we’ll assign a practitioner to lead your care that has the skills and experience to meet your needs.

Sometimes only a few meetings are needed, other times more meetings are required – it completely depends on your needs. We’ll regularly review this with you to make sure you and your family are happy with what’s going on.

We are based at St David’s Hospital in Cardiff.

We  work with children and young people aged 0 – 18 years old with moderate to severe mental health difficulties.

For children under 16, we need the consent of a legally responsible parent or carer.

We currently only accept referrals from professionals, such as a GP, health visitor or social worker.

If you are working with us and need to get in contact, you can:

Call 02921 836730 between 9 am and 5 pm, Monday to Fridays (excluding bank holidays).

Our address is St David’s Hospital, Cowbridge Road East, Cardiff CF11 9XB

This is not a crisis service