Children & Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)

CAMHS stands for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. We have teams in Dorset called community teams (also known as Core-CAMHS), an assessment and brief intervention team (known as CAMHS Gateway) and an inpatient team at Pebble Lodge in Bournemouth.

We assess and treat children and young people up the age of 18 who are suffering significant mental difficulties. CAMHS also support families and carers who need advice or help.

We can help with a range of serious mental health problems, including:

• significant self harm and risk-taking behaviours
• depression and severe anxiety disorders
• obsessive-compulsive disorders
• complex and/or significant post-traumatic disorders
• severe behavioural difficulties
• mental health or severe emotional difficulties in children with a diagnosis of Autism or Asperger's Syndrome
• psychosis

Find out more about what we can help with here.

You can refer yourself using the CAMHS gateway.

For urgent mental health support, please call our Connection service which is open 24/7. Dorset residents or people visiting Dorset can call direct on 0800 652 0190 at local call rate or access via NHS 111 for free. More information on our Access Mental Services is available on the Dorset HealthCare website.