Ms Hannah N? Ghiolla Mhairt?n:

One of things that always comes up for us is that when you get into CAMHS, CAMHS says they are not specialists in autism, and when you go into the child and disability network team, CDNT, they say they are not specialists in mental health services, so you are kind of pushed between the two.

When people go to CAMHS, they are very specifically looking for mental health services. We want to keep saying that, because so many families are being gaslighted. I know I keep saying that CAMHS often is the right place for this. We speak about the over-reliance on medication but in many cases medication is required and CAMHS is the only service that has child psychiatrists. You cannot access that in primary services or in CDNTs. Therefore, people are trying to get into CAMHS for a specific reason.

Yesterday, the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, announced the launch of a new screening process. When kids are to be sent on to a particular service, there will be a new panel in place that will determine the best service for the child to be sent to. She is of the belief that many more will end up in primary care, as opposed to going into CAMHS. Many of our members are quite concerned about this. There is a waiting list of 16,000 for primary care psychology at the moment-----