About the Service

Currently referrals to this service can only be made via CAMHS (Children and Adolescent Mental Health Service).

We know that young people face consistent issues when trying to access mental health services including:

• lack of care continuity
• different thresholds and concepts of what constitutes a mental disorder
• different models of care and expectations for young people
• different intensity of care provided for young people by adult mental health services
• different potential pathways from children’s to adult services, with different destinations

Some young people within the 18-25 age group receive differential access to care; including young people who transition from CAMHS, those who do not meet the criteria for adult mental health services but who have continuing needs and require care; people presenting to adult mental services for the first time and those in high risk groups.

Covid-19 has also impacted on young people’s ability to access services.  Access to many of the support structures, such as schools, university, college and social care services, may have been limited or not available during the pandemic.

To support these young people aged between 18 and 25, Action for Children and Derbyshire Federation for Mental Health are working in partnership to develop and deliver transition services for Young Adults.  The service is a pilot scheme, focussed in Derbyshire.

The service is administered by Derbyshire Federation for Mental Health and follows a number of guiding principles, including:

• Young people are at the heart of the service
• Empowering young people to have autonomy and choice
• Enabling young people to take what they’ve learnt and use it to stay well
• Providing young people with strategies and tools that can be used to transition into adulthood, to thrive and be happy
• Recognising a young person’s value and their contribution to society
• It’s about coproduction – “nothing about me, without me”
• Enabling young people to embrace their own uniqueness and recognising their value in society
• Engendering acceptance, embracing who you are, acknowledging that mental health challenges may be part of you – learning to see as one part not the whole part.