Friends, Family and Carers

CAMHS stands for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.  We are a service offering help for children and young people, usually between the ages of five and 18 who live in Bolton.

We work with children and young people to help them cope when they are having problems relating to how they feel, how they think about things and sometimes how they behave.The team in CAMHS works with GPs, hospitals and other professionals, such as teachers, to assess, treat and support young people and children, and their parents or carers.

As a parent or carer of a child or teenager, you may have serious concerns about their emotional wellbeing and behaviours. You may have problems managing your children, or may feel that your own difficulties are affecting your children in some way.

Your child’s behaviour will change as they grow and develop.  Understanding this, but at the same time noticing when these behaviours become a concern, can be difficult, particularly as children can find it hard to speak to the people that are closest to them. This is often because they don’t want to worry or upset them.

Because of this, it might be that you find out that your child is having difficulties by noticing signs, rather than by your child talking to you. Examples of changes in behaviour might include: