CAMHS assessment a shambles

houseyhouse

My daughter was assessed for ADHD at CAMHS this week after waiting 6 months for an appointment. Our 2 hour assessment was over in 30 mins. I use the word ‘assessment’ loosely because it was clear at the end that the doctor had decided the answer before we even walked through the door. My daughter apparently can’t have ADHD because she doesn’t display enough symptoms at school. The scores needs to be above 65 on the Connors and hers was 60 for hyperactivity at school. Her score for hyperactivity at home was off the chart but apparently the opinion of a teacher she’d known for 3 months invalidates that. This is despite the fact that research repeatedly finds that girls mask their ADHD symptoms at school. I pointed this out and was told a child with ‘real’ ADHD ‘couldn’t’ mask their symptoms. My daughter comes home exhausted from the effort she puts in to appear normal at school.

The doctor then cherry picked things I said and twisted them to support her conclusion, eg I said she was having fewer tantrums after various adjustments we made when we started to suspect ADHD (no homework, own bedroom, lower expectations etc) and the doctor said I had reported a ‘massive improvement’. But I had reported that still she has substantially more tantrums than any of her younger siblings!!!

I just want to vent. But I would also love to hear from people who had bad first experiences with CAHMS for any condition and whether/ how you got them to do a proper assessment on your child.

I accept that my daughter may not have ADHD but she’s struggling and we were offered no help at all and the justification for the diagnosis flies in the face of research on girls with ADHD. I’m so disappointed and frustrated.

tscul32

I'm not going to get into the details but we had an assessment with CAMHs 10 years ago and it was a complete joke. Like with you, a decision had been made before we even got in the door. We have seen many other professionals, multiple disciplines, over the years and not a single one has agreed with what CAMHs said, in fact most were very taken aback by their conclusions. Biggest waste of time ever and if we had accepted what they said as fact (as many parents do without question) then we certainly wouldn't have the great teenager we have today.

SuperBowserWorld

In our experience CAMHS was very helpful to get us through an initial crisis with our child (different issues to ADHD).

But we have to use lots of other resources since then and it's a real struggle and cost to find the right people to help.