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Jersey families are suffering and some are being split up because of the failings of the service set up to help youngsters with mental health issues, according to a critical report out this morning.
A report into support for young people with mental health problems and their families has found that parents are left feeling “isolated and on a lonely journey” because of the lack of support - and most worryingly, the majority of parents say the services aren’t helping their children get any better.
According to a States scrutiny review carried out over the last six months, parents have been left desperate at weekends and evenings because there’s no-one they can turn to out-of-hours and in some cases they have had to call the police or go to A&E to get help.
The panel - led by Deputy Jackie Hilton - say that they became aware of concerns last year and that things at Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) have to change, and soon. Their report has outlined 40 key findings and 28 recommendations to bring the service up to scratch.
Among the findings were that when children and young people with mental health issues turn up at A&E there is no safe place for them to go and they either end up on the paediatric ward or in some cases in police cells or interview rooms at the Police Station.
There’s been a huge demand for its services over the last year but the waiting time for an appointment with CAMHS has more than doubled with vulnerable young Islanders having to wait more than three months to see someone. It’s taking as long as nine months for children to be diagnosed with autism.
Recommendations were made eight years ago to improve CAMHS but the Panel were disappointed to see that most of them had still not been fully implemented.
It found it unacceptable that there had been no registered family therapist for the last eighteen months.
The Health Minister is due to respond to the Scrutiny Panel’s findings within the next six weeks.
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