Mental health

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood.

Children and young people may experience a wide range of social and emotional difficulties which manifest themselves in many ways. These may include becoming withdrawn or isolated, as well as displaying challenging, disruptive or disturbing behaviour. These behaviours may reflect underlying mental health difficulties such as anxiety or depression, self-harming, substance misuse, eating disorders or physical symptoms that are medically unexplained. Other children and young people may have disorders such as attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactivedisorder or attachment disorder.

If you have any concerns at all for your child's mental health then you should discuss this with your GP who can make an assessment of your child's mental health and make a referral to appropriate services if required.

Sandwell has produced an Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health directory to help with the identification of services that may be able to offer help and support. You can access it in the downloads section at the bottom of this page.

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)

CAMHS are the NHS services that assesses and treat young people with emotional, behavioural or mental health difficulties.

Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

The majority of mental health services in Sandwell including CAMHS are provided by the Black Country Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. It provides a variety of services to support the wellbeing of people of all ages with mental health problems. Click below for details of:

Kooth

Kooth is an online counselling and emotional well-being platform for children and young people, accessible through mobile, tablet and desktop and free at the point of use. For more information about Kooth click here

Page last reviewed: 19/03/2024

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