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patientsfamilies.com - raising awareness of a family's poor experience of children's mental health services in Oxfordshire, leading to estrangement from our child A Parent's Experience of Oxfordshire CAMHS Contact: info@patientsfamilies.com I'm an Oxfordshire parent and have had a very poor experience with the NHS Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service in Oxfordshire. Why the Website? (last updated 22 May 2026) I have found the NHS’s complaints procedure very frustrating and not fit for purpose and I think it’s important to raise awareness among local parents of dissatisfaction in this area. Below the data tables on this page, I have written a brief account of some of the difficulties that my family has encountered as a result of my relative’s long wait before starting treatment . I’ve also written about my experience of the local NHS staff’s approach to interacting with relatives and what happened when I tried to express my concerns . There is also a page on family estrangement , which is ultimately what happened to my family and which other families have also reported has happened to them after a vulnerable family member received poor quality therapy (not only in Oxfordsire). I would be interested to hear from other families in Oxfordshire who might have had a similar experience. You can contact me at info@patientsfamilies.com . I would never share your experience or your name with anyone else without your permission, but to be certain of this, you could also use an anonymous email address to write to me. In case you're not sure how to do this, here is a link to a page that explains how to set up a new gmail account . I strongly recommend securing private healthcare for your family for the treatment of any mental health problems, if possible, or seeking other sources of information or treatment. My experience of mental health treatment is that, if you go to the NHS first, it is harder to supplement your relative’s care with private treatment later. I've included links to information about free counselling in Oxfordshire and online resources here and other sources of low-cost counselling and other mental health support resources here . Long Delays to Assessment and Start of Treatment, Leading to Hospitalisation In my opinion, the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust failed to adhere to NHS England guidance and targets for the treatment of mental health conditions in children. I also think that they failed to meet the World Health Organisation goals concerning early detection and avoiding institutionalisation in the treatment of mental health problems in young people. Due to the delays in receiving treatment, my relative received a very different treatment plan, involving a long admission to hospital. The Children's Commissioner for England publishes annual reports on children's mental health services https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/?s=mental+health+reports. On Page 96 of the Children's Commissioner's most recent report on access to children's mental health services in England (published on 18th May 2025), the Children's Commissioner, Dame Rachel De Souza wrote that: .. provision of children's mental health services varies hugely by local area... The worst performing ICBs (Integrated Care Boards) in 2023-24 were NHS Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and NHS Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West. The following is a summary of some key data for our region, reported in the Children’s Commissioner’s 3 most recent reports on children’s mental health services : Children’s Mental Health Services 2020/21 Children’s mental health services 2022-23 Children’s mental health services 2023-24 Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes Birmingham and Solihull Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon & Wiltshire Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Buckinghamshire Oxfordshire Berkshire West Frimley (East Berkshire) £1,332 £1,648 £1,350 £1,336 £606 £778 £573 £1,101 £1,515 £1,775 £1,542 £1,610 £623 £759 £628 £1,193 £75 £92 £62 £85 £61 £55 £46 £50 £47 £86 1.2% 1.3% 0.8% 1.3% 0.8% 0.8% 0.8% 0.7% 0.8% 1.4% 1.24% 1.37% 0.86% 1.18% 0.75% 0.97% 0.72% 1.4% 1.23% 1.32% 0.99% 1.10% 0.77% 0.92% 0.84% 1.45% 26 days 36 days 36 days 47 days 56 days 44 days 42 days 57 days 36 days 54 days 10 days 32 days 28 days 48 days 71 days 47 days 55 days 82 days 59 days 60 days 13 days 52 days 25 days 55 days 69 days 50 days 64 days 61 days NHS regional organisations. Data reported are for Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG) in 2021-22, Sub-ICBs in 2022-23 and Integrated Care Boards (ICB) in 2023-24** Spend per child aged 0-17 in the local population Spend per child with an active referral % of total CCG or ICB budget spent on CYPMH* Average (median) time from referral to start of treatment ** 2023-24 2022-23 2021-22 2021-22 2022-23 2023-24 2021-22 2022-23 2023-24 * CYPMH = children's and young people's mental health ** The counting stops when the child has had 2 contacts with CAMHS (e.g. assessment plus first contact with case worker) (** There has been reorganisation in the NHS in recent years, including the formation of the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care Board (ICB) during 2022/23. Separate data are reported for the individual county-level Trusts where I could find them.) The data shown here follow a pattern established since at least 2018, when the Children’s Commissioner began to publish reports on children’s mental health services in England: https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/resource/?pillar=&resource-type=report&order=#filters . A table showing waiting times in Oxfordshire since 2018, compared with the average for England, can be viewed through the following link: Waiting times for CAMHS in Oxfordshire . A Surprising Aspect of the Oxfordshire NHS's Approach to Children's Mental Health Care My experience with Oxfordshire CAMHS gave me the impression that their staff disproportionately attributed mental health difficulties in young people to factors related to their parents. I previously thought that the staff would make an effort to support families and I still believe that parents are, in the vast majority of cases, a safe and supportive resource for their children. However, my experience suggested that we are not always regarded in this way by the staff. The same actions that were described as ‘support’ when carried out by staff were sometimes characterised as ‘control’ when carried out by parents. A Research Professor of Sociology has expressed his view on this area (with thanks to the author for his kind permission to include a link to his article) here . If you prefer to avoid links, the article is called 'For a moratorium on parent blaming' and the author is Joseph E. Davis Ph.D. The most problematic areas, in my experience, were : Absence of Triage The delay to receiving an assessment with CAMHS and start of treatment, following referral by our GP, was substantially longer than NHS England targets . No effort was made to identify the greatest need; the GP gave us an estimated number of months’ wait and this proved to be accurate. Later, when I wrote to the Trust to express my concerns about this, the extent of the delay was not acknowledged. The child was suffering significantly greater distress by the time we got to the assessment appointment. We did seek advice from private sector specialists while waiting for the CAMHS appointment and got some helpful but limited guidance in this way. However, the private therapists who I contacted all indicated that they would prefer to work as an additional resource under NHS direction, given the age of the child at the time. Absence of Urgency When we got to the top of the waiting list, the assessment appointment had been booked for a duration of 90 minutes, involving 3 members of staff with reassuring-sounding job titles. However, when we arrived, the appointment was structured as a practice session for a trainee psychologist (a 4th member of staff), with the trainee leading the first 20 minutes of the meeting, slowly going through a list of basic questions which didn't all seem relevant and taking detailed notes, while 2 qualified staff members sat and quietly waited and a psychiatrist kept popping in and out until this part was over. By this stage, I felt that we had been in crisis for a couple of months and the contrast between our experience and the way the staff conducted the meeting was exasperating. Lack of Discretion and Poor Insight At this initial meeting and 2 subsequent very similar assessment interviews over the following days, we (the parents) were repeatedly asked to comment on the background to the illness in the presence of the distressed child. I think this approach can both exacerbate the child's distress and be detrimental to the parents’ relationship with the child. I could see that my child was understandably upset by some of the information that I provided in response to questioning by staff, but at the same time I thought that it was important to disclose as much background as possible. I do not recommend answering any questions about potentially sensitive topics concerning your child in front of the child. Low Quality Hospital Admission Following the assessment, it was determined that my child was now too ill to be treated in the community and needed to be hospitalised. I’m certain that this would not have been necessary if the response had been within the NHS England target wait time. The child was placed in a hospital operated by a private equity company, a 3-hour round trip from our Oxfordshire home. Several troubling things happened at the hospital. Incidents of non-compliance by the patients with the ward psychiatrist’s wishes were met with threats of an assessment leading to possible detention under the Mental Health Act. During this admission, our relationship with our child became strained and the ward psychiatrist told us that our child was becoming ‘institutionalised’. After 3 months, we were told that it wasn't necessary for us to visit so often, which we ignored. We started asking Oxfordshire CAMHS to arrange for a transfer elsewhere, but were told that this was not possible. Visiting times at the hospital were restricted. About 6 months into the admission, when we called one Saturday morning to check the visiting arrangements that were going to be permitted that weekend, we were told on the phone by an agency nurse that we were not welcome to visit, that our child had requested a 2-week break from us. I could hear in his voice that the agency nurse was a kind person who felt awful about having to pass such a message on to us and I knew that there would have been no point arguing with him. The building was secure and we wouldn’t be let in. The only permanent members of staff at work all weekend were care assistants. A member of staff called me the following week and pointedly told me that “the decision to cancel the visits was taken by a member of staff at a meeting where only [our child] and [the ward psychiatrist] were present”. When we were allowed back, our next visit was supervised by a care assistant. We found this strange and unsettling, because no-one had told us the reason for the suspension and we were certain that we were not by any sensible measure what might be called abusive parents. Over the next few weeks, the ward psychiatrist chaired several meetings with us and made it clear that she thought it was time that our child left the hospital and moved on. The child wasn’t well enough to be discharged however, so the psychiatrist referred our family to 0xfordshire Social Services to try to get the child re-housed. She wrote in the referral documentation that one of the parents had a mental health problems, but we did not, other than being concerned about our child's care. A social worker interviewed all of us and our other child’s (or children’s - I’m being a bit vague about this for privacy reasons) head teacher(s) and then closed the case. A few weeks after this, we were finally able to secure a transfer to a different hospital for our child. I later learned that, following an inspection at around the same time that we were referred to Social Services, the hospital was downgraded by the Care Quality Commission to Inadequate. No-one told us about this, even though our child was an inpatient. Over the following months, the hospital’s senior manager and the ward psychiatrist both left their jobs. Disrupted Education Living for several years in a string of inpatient psychiatric units as an older teenager, the child was only able to take a significantly reduced number of GCSEs and A Levels, narrowing their future life choices. Majority of Care Provided by Under-Qualified Staff Many of the problems which my family and I have experienced have been exacerbated by under-qualified staff practising mental health care. Instead of receiving therapy from qualified psychologists, my relative’s main contact was with mental health nurses. To my surprise, the nurses did not always have relevant experience or training in the diagnosed condition. Over the first 2 years of contact with Oxfordshire CAMHS (before we were cut off), my child had 4 meetings with a qualified Clinical Psychologist (DClinPsy). The treatment that they offered for the first 22 months might have helped had it not been for the very long delay to assessment and start of treatment. The wider NHS CAMHS system is designed for what they call ‘early intervention’, but it seems to me that if, in Oxfordshire, they’re only staffed and organised to respond when the mental health condition or disorder has become entrenched, early intervention methods are no longer appropriate. Sometimes, there were problems with prescriptions: once when a psychiatrist prescribed 2 products that the child had not agreed to take and once when a staff member who was not a doctor made a decision about a product that should be taken but this was not communicated accurately to the doctor. After about a year and a half in 2 different hospitals, our child was discharged to our home, with a care package that consisted of (i) 2 hours of support per week, on average, with a nurse, on Teams, (ii) 10-15 minutes per week on the phone with a part-qualified psychologist (not a DClinPsych), who was monitoring progress, (iii) a phone or Teams call every 4-6 weeks with one other specialist and (iv) prescription reviews with a psychiatrist, about once every 2-3 months. It was regularly very difficult to contact staff by email or telephone. The child was told that they didn’t have to have any contact with us while in our home, although we were in theory responsible for their safety. Absence of Transparency The referral to Social Services, although not at first accepted, became the first step in a process of paving the way for our child to be set up with a benefits package and cut off contact with us, a situation which has now persisted for several years. We were never told what our child’s grievances with us were. I've written on another page about family estrangement and the influence that therapy sometimes has on this phenomenon . I believe that the approach of NHS mental health staff in Oxfordshire towards patients and their families can, in some cases, contribute towards patients falling into the cracks between the NHS and Social Services, thereby experiencing long stays in hospitals or care homes, when such could have been avoided.

An Oxfordshire parent provides links to free counselling, courses and articles about mental health support for teenagers Free Alternative Resources for Mental Health Support - Introduction Last updated 5th April 2026 info@patientsfamilies.com Recently, I contacted a psychotherapist in private practice to ask if they could schedule some sessions with a family member. It's a child who doesn't have a particular condition, but our ongoing situation has been difficult for some time and I’m concerned that it affects motivation with school work, as well as our relationship. The therapist replied to say that, instead of therapy, they recommend that I find other ways to support the child: encourage positive friendships, exercise and other interests and provide targeted help such as perhaps a tutor to help with motivation around study, rather than paying for a therapist. They cautioned that sometimes psychotherapy can lead to rumination and resentment. I think this was excellent advice and that it could also be helpful for parents and carers to pursue their own ‘psychoeducation’. I’ve noticed that, rather than therapy, some sources of support for young people (and others) experiencing poor mental health, such as charities, emphasise the importance of improving 'wellbeing'. I’ve included here some links to organisations that can offer support or psychoeducation for parents and for adolescents. These sources can all be accessed free of charge. If you have landed on this page without first seeing the Home page of this website , it might be worth reading about my family's experience with NHS CAMHS , which was in Oxfordshire. I found that many of the NHS people working as therapists had a tendency to attribute a disproportionate amount of the cause of mental health problems in teenagers to their parents. In my family's case, this led to my child being facilitated in being set up with a benefits package and cutting off contact with us, which I'm sure was unreasonable and unnecessary and has left my child stranded. I strongly recommend securing private sector treatment for mental health problems in children in Oxfordshire and have also included links to some paid-for resources here . Possible sources of free in-person psychological counselling for teenagers Many senior schools (both private and state sector) have a school counsellor available to pupils, funded by the school. The counsellors are usually qualified psychotherapists who also work in private practice. The potential drawback is that sessions most likely take place within school hours and on school premises, and your child might find it awkward to have to explain to their friends where they are going for the regular meetings. There may be a wait. www.theabingdonbridge.org.uk is a charity which offers 12 one-to-one counselling sessions with qualified psychotherapists free to young people aged 13 – 25 who live in South Oxfordshire or the Vale of the White Horse. They raise funds for this and accept donations. They also run weekly wellbeing groups for different age ranges, starting from age 13, and other activities. Nai’s House, naishouse.org.uk , based in Bicester, is an Oxfordshire youth charity working directly with children and young adults to reduce suicidality. This charity also accepts donations via it's website. It was founded by a mum whose daughter took her own life aged 22 after receiving treatment from statutory mental health services and finding that their approach didn’t work for her. The charity's mission is to reduce suicide, self harm and poor emotional wellbeing in young people aged under 30. They offer 1-to-1 support, workshops, social groups, complementary treatments and suicide prevention training. Oxfordshire Mind is a mental health charity (part of a UK nation-wide charity called Mind). They provide wellbeing support to adults and children. In Oxfordshire, they run a series of educational courses and workshops in areas including assertiveness, self-esteem, stress and managing strong emotions. The courses appear to be quite in-depth, ranging in length from 2 x 2-hour online workshops in Assertiveness, to an 8-week face-to-face course in Managing Strong Emotions. The courses are available to anyone over 16, free to attend and run on fixed dates. In order to access them, you would need to attend an informal 30 minute appointment with a Wellbeing Worker to discuss your current situation and wellbeing needs. More information and contact details can be found at: https://www.oxfordshiremind.org.uk/support-for-you/short-courses/ . www.youngminds.org.uk has short blogs (‘real stories’) from young people and techniques for coping with anxiety, panic attacks, overwhelm and building self-confidence and resilience, among other areas. https://healthtalk.org/ is a resource run by a charity which provides short video clips and transcripts of interviews concerning a range of mental health problems and difficulties faced by teenagers. The charity’s aim is to disseminate knowledge and help people to feel less alone. There are interviews with people who explain why they think they developed depression, the onset of an eating disorder, living with acne and many others subjects. https://www.oxfordshiremind.org.uk is a charity (part of a UK nation-wide charity called Mind). They provide a range of services, some for young people from as young as age 9. There are detailed information sheets on anxiety and stress, self-care and sleep, and advice for parents and students, among other resources. Free online mental health support for teenagers Free online resources for parents supporting their children's mental health Familylives.org.uk is a charity which publishes articles and offers some free online courses, including one entitled ‘Coping with teens’ and another on ‘Co-parenting’ (following separation or divorce). There's an article on Parental Alienation and an article and videos about bullying. MindEd https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mental-health/minded is a free online resource provided by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Much of it was written for people working or volunteering with children (including teachers), but it's free and available for anyone to access. Funding has come from the Department of Health and the Department of Education. For some of the modules, you don’t have to register, while for others, you do need to register, but can still access the content free of charge. It provides links to training sessions of about 30-40 minutes’ duration on a range of topics including Adverse Childhood Experiences, and Suicide and Self-Harm Prevention. There is a module called MindEd for Families , specifically aimed at parents and carers, written by Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists. (There is also a module for relatives of older people experiencing mental health difficulties .) The MindEd for Families resource is extremely comprehensive, including sessions called Should I Be Concerned?, Support Available for Parents, Self-harm, Aggression, Running Away, Suicidal Threats, Eating Disorders, Family Relationship Problems, Drug or Alcohol Use, Mood Swings & Muddled Thinking and Autism Spectrum Disorders. There is even a module on Dealing with Professionals. I cried when I found this website, because of the contrast between the authoritative, compassionate material here and my experience of contact with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services locally. Free Courses in England is a website which provides a range of courses, several with a mental health focus, with funding from the Department for Education. Most of the courses lead to a qualification accredited by NCFE, an educational charity and one of the biggest awarding bodies for post-16 technical and vocational courses in the UK. Some of the courses are also recognized as continuing professional development in certain careers. Online courses available include Children’s Mental Health, Understanding Adverse Childhood Experiences, Mental Health First Aid, Understanding Autism and Counselling Skills. The Level 2 Certificate in Understanding Children and Young People’s Mental Health course, for example, has a duration of 6-12 weeks, with a time commitment of 5-10 hours per week. This course is rated 4.5 (out of 5) on TrustPilot. For all courses, you have to prove residency/eligibility (upload passport image or similar) and not currently be enrolled on a different UK Government-funded training scheme. The Centre for Emotional Health is a charity based in Oxford, which offers training to people who work for local authorities, schools, prisons and faith organisations, among others. Their mission is to equip these organisations to promote emotional health in individuals, families and communities. The charity has a resources for families section on their website, with free single-page downloadable guides about empathy, giving praise effectively, negotiation and problem-solving within the family, among other themes. https://www.aspergerexperts.com/ is a website with a lot of free material. The founders are 30-somethings all on the autism spectrum themselves. They explain that the primary symptom in Asperger’s Syndrome is anxiety and you don’t need a diagnosis to access their material. There's a 4-minute introductory video on the website at this link: Sensory Funnel Video. And this page: https://www.aspergerexperts.com/topics/ leads to links with many blogs and articles offering advice for families with someone on the autism spectrum, on topics including Parenting, Accountability, Motivation and Transitioning to Adulthood. Potentially helpful blogs on psycho-therapists' websites: https://hopeandharmonytherapy.co.uk/?post_type=post – Michael Tooley has written several blogs on the different aspects of the complexities of grief, social media and mental health, positive thinking and catastrophising, communication and conflict resolution. https://www.counsellingwithdominic.co.uk/post/carers-blog - Dominic Burch is a counsellor based in Huddersfield and blogs about mental health support for carers. Mental Health Resources on YouTube: What is happening in the brain of a child with ADHD? A TED Talk by a neuroscientist whose own son has been diagnosed with the condition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SncfM3psX-Q . Dr Robert Melillo, clinician, university professor and brain researcher. 7 Signs of Undiagnosed Autism in Adults: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwu3iZSgf10 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3ZDo8YfiXs9EFD0F1izurw - systemic family therapy, various videos. A BBC documentary about anxiety: ‘I blame my parents’ giving some insight into the work of an accredited Family and Systemic Psychotherapist (scroll down on the following page): https://www.aft.org.uk/page/digitalresources . There is also a link to the Systemic Family Therapy YouTube channel

Why people cut off contact with their families, from the perspective of the parents Why do people cut off contact with their parents? (last updated 2 May 2026) About a hundred years ago, an ancestor of mine, who I’m not very proud of, left his wife when she was dying of cancer and pursued a relationship with a new girlfriend. Their 16-year-old daughter was disgusted by her father’s behaviour and never spoke to him again. I would probably have reacted in the same way if this had been my father. And I do of course acknowledge that there are people who have faced serious abuse, neglect, homophobia, racist disapproval of partners, difficult childhoods through parents having addictions and mental health problems, among other regrettable situations. However, in recent years, the definition of the word ‘abuse’ seems to have broadened considerably and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that psychology is now the most popular degree course at undergraduate level in the UK https://thinkstudent.co.uk/most-popular-degrees-in-the-uk/ , or that psychological therapy is an under-regulated profession, https://post.parliament.uk/regulation-of-psychological-professionals/ . There are a lot of holders of a BA or BSc in Psychology out there, following a 3-year course, whereas it takes at least a further 4 years to earn a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology (DClinPsy). People are also becoming accredited as counsellors and therapists in under 3 years through other, shorter courses from a range of providers. In my opinion, the lack of training leads unsuitably qualified members of staff (my child's main contact at Oxford Health was a nurse and we had an occupational therapist allocated in the role of a so-called 'link worker', a sort of family liaison officer) to sometimes conclude that the people they are counselling have suffered abuse from their parents in situations where a more highly-qualified counsellor would involve the parents in the conversation and would not reach the same conclusion. I think that some of the under-qualified clinicians who became involved with my child lacked curiosity and an awareness of their responsibilities to work in the child’s best interests; their main aim seemed to be to form a close bond with the child themselves. (If you have landed on this page first and you are a parent in Oxfordshire, I recommend that you read this website's Home page, where I provide a summary of my family's very poor experience with Oxfordshire Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services .) From the perspective of parents, expressed in social media posts that I’ve read (which do provide some solace and a feeling of solidarity for thousands of cut-off parents like me), the reasons they believe they were cut off are many and varied; some are listed here. Some of these motives for such a drastic course of action may portray the adult children in an unsympathetic light, but it is notable that there are very few scenarios listed here where the child or young adult has made the decision to the cut off their parents on their own. Resentment through rumination can happen through therapy or exposure to social media content, or can happen to people of any age who in retrospect disapprove of aspects of their upbringing: ‘I had tiger parents’ Some people appear to happily pursue every opportunity offered to them while they’re growing up: after-school sports, choir, music tuition, coding, drama (or similar). They may go to fee-charging schools or receive private tutoring to help them achieve good grades, get into a university with a good reputation, funded wholly or partly by their parents, graduate with a qualification which enables them to get a first job with a decent salary and pay their own rent. At this stage, they inform their parents that they now feel they were controlled and suffered with anxiety because of pushy parenting and they cut one or both parents out of their lives. Or the converse, ‘Mum and Dad had no time for me’ , where a young adult compares themselves with others and comes to resent the time they spent in after-school and holiday clubs or having free time to manage themselves, while both parents worked to provide the best standard of living they could. Others have remarked that their child or sibling who cut them off seemed to have grown into the sort of person who liked to think of themselves as a survivor who has overcome a difficult childhood , while no-one else in the family has any recollection of the adversity and it was never clear what they were making reference to. On the Free alternative resources and Other alternative resources pages of this website, I've included links to information about organisations that provide resources for parents whose child is suffering with mental health problems, helping them to support their child, as well as to organisations which employ qualified psycho-therapists to provide free or affordable counselling for both teenagers and parents. Divorce is a big risk area for estrangement , particularly following marriages where the spouses were of unequal status or where they don’t both work together to co-parent responsibly. The cut-off may come several years after the divorce and be preceded by a long period of diminishing contact, as part of a pattern of ‘parental alienation’. This is a very unsettling and confusing experience for the alienated parent, if they are more thoughtful, responsible and would not themselves resort to alienating their children against their former spouse. Stay-at-home mums seem to be particularly susceptible to being cut off , or any parent who has taken a career break or reduced their working hours to look after their family, is the lower earner or less confident socially than their ex. The higher earning parent, or the wealthier grandparents, can afford a more expensive barrister if the children are young, as well as a more comfortable home, holidays, experiences, birthdays, etc. Conversely, if one parent has stayed at home to look after everyone and the home, their children may sympathise with them in a divorce and complain that the full-time working parent wasn’t around enough . They are still young and don’t value the main wage earner’s contribution to the family’s living standards and wellbeing. There’s a divorce because either Dad or Mum feels that the other spouse is consistently inconsiderate towards them , or are no longer willing to tolerate the housework, childcare and mental load imbalance, or other behaviour that they find intolerable. The parent initiating the divorce has finally snapped after years of putting up with the situation so as to not break up the family. The children haven’t noticed the initiating parent’s frustration, so regard the divorce as having come out of the blue and are resentful of the initiating parent. Mum gets involved in an affair and cheats on Dad . The children sympathise with Dad, blame Mum for the marriage breakdown and for betraying Dad and don’t warm to the new step-parent. This could of course equally work the other way around (Dad cheats on Mum ). A new spouse or partner for the adult child sometimes leads to one set of parents being cut off: A wealth disparity between families , leading to different lifestyle expectations, seems to present a risk to the not-so-wealthy parents and they can find themselves cut off, disinvited from events or gradually frozen out over the years. A new partner for the young adult child is very close to their own family and the adult child over time gets sucked into that family’s orbit and becomes harder to contact. The new young couple don’t alternate Christmases between families and in-laws, but it’s somehow taken for granted that they will always spend holidays, Mother’s Day, etc., with the in-laws.

Historical waiting times for treatment with Oxfordshire CAMHS (2021-24), compared with NHS England targets and with averages for England Waiting times for CAMHS in Oxfordshire compared with the rest of England (Updated 4 Jan 2026) NHS England is, according to Wikipedia, part of the Department of Health and Social Care. It oversees the planning and day-to-day operation of the commissioning side of the NHS in England. In February 2015, NHS England published a guidance document: https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/iapt-wait-times-guid.pdf setting out targets for the regional NHS Trusts to work towards in the area of access to psychological therapy (for all ages). In July 2015, NHS England published a guidance document: https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/cyp-eating-disorders-access-waiting-time-standard-comm-guid.pdf which sets out targets for access to treatment for eating disorders in children and young people under 18. In 2016, NHS England introduced guidance for early intervention in a first episode of psychosis. This link is to a guidance document providing implementation advice to NHS Trusts for meeting the targets in this area: https://www.england.nhs.uk/mentalhealth/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2016/04/eip-resources.pdf If your child was referred to NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) for mental health support during the last several years (since 2016), it’s my understanding that the following will have been the applicable guidelines: Waiting time targets for mental health conditions in children (England) Target time from referral (from GP, school, self-referral, or other) to assessment and start of treatment US Maximum of 2 weeks from referral to start of treatment, for a first episode (assessment and start of treatment must take place within 2 weeks.) Source of this information Implementing the early intervention in psychosis access and waiting time standard , NHS England, Version 3, 16 Feb 2023, Version 2 Dec 2020 Assess risk over the phone within one day of a referral. If the risk is ‘high’, a clinic assessment must be offered within 5 days. If the risk is classified as ‘routine’, a clinic assessment to be offered within 4 weeks. Access and Waiting Time Standard for Children and Young People with an Eating Disorder , NHS England, Version 1.0, July 2015 Other condition requiring psy-chological therapy (all ages) Assessment within 6 weeks and start of treatment within 18 weeks. Care Quality Commission Brief guide BG012: CAMHS waiting times V4 , August 2019 Suspected condition Psychosis (all ages 14-65) Eating disorder (adolescents up to age 18) My child’s experience on the waiting list bore no relation at all to the relevant target. In addition, when they got to the top of the list, the attitude and reactions of the staff I met suggested that they were insufficiently aware of the importance of early intervention. Trying to gain some insight into the extent to which the targets are reportedly being met is a challenge for a non-specialist. I’ve taken the information in the tables below from reports about children’s mental health services published each year since 2020 by the Children’s Commissioner for England . The waiting times here are for conditions described as ‘Other condition' in the targets shown above (i.e. not psychosis or an eating disorder). There has been a consistent underspend in Oxfordshire since at least the year when the Children’s Commissioner started to publish their reports. Comparing Oxfordshire CAMHS with average waiting times for England: CCG = Clinical Commisioning Group CYPMH = Children's and Young Persons' Mental Health avg = average * The counting ends when the child has had 2 contacts with CAMHS: assessment + first contact with case worker % of CCG budget spent on CYPMH 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 2021-22 0.92% 0.97% 1.00% 0.99% 0.82% 0.80% 0.86% 0.70% England avg Oxfordshire 84 days 74 days 52 days 57 days 53 days 43 days 32 days 40 days Oxfordshire £59 £66 £73 £77 England avg England avg Oxfordshire £46 £47 £51 £50 Amount spent on CYPMH per child in the local population Median wait from referral to start of treatment * Year (April-March) During 2022, the reporting changed following a structural re-organisation in the NHS (introducing Integrated Care Boards). Regional expenditure is now shown by ICB, with Oxfordshire forming part of Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West (BOB) and expenditure is now expressed as an amount per child referred, rather than with reference to the number of children in the local population. ICB BOB Amount spent on CYPMH per child referred England range 22-23 23-24 1.68 - 0.72% 1.72 - 0.77% 63 64 £2,236 - £573 £2,513 - £548 0.72% 0.84% Median wait from referral to start of treatment (days) * 35 43 ICB BOB £573 £628 Year (April-March) % of total ICB expenditure spent on CYPMH ICB BOB England average England range

Links to organisations providing free counselling and wellbeing support for children in Oxfordshire. Links to sources of reasonably-priced counselling or therapy

Disappointing outcomes when I tried to complain to Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and healthcare regulators about long delays and poor treatment by Oxfordshire CAMHS My experience of raising concerns (last updated 7 June 2026) During the course of my child’s treatment, I’ve tried to seek help from various NHS professionals, from Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust management and from regulators. The outcomes are summarised here: Individual or organization I’ve contacted for help Outcome An unsuitably-trained nurse was the main professional involved in our child’s care. The nurse had only limited training in the condition diagnosed, but was trained to treat a different mental health condition. An acquaintance who was a doctor (but not in mental health) told my child's other parent that patient care was always supposed to be led by a doctor, so we asked if a doctor could get more involved. We were offered a Teams call with a person called a Service Team Manager, but it was quite unsatisfactory. The person didn't listen to us and even spoke over us some of the time, not letting us finish our sentences. It was extremely upsetting and no change was made in our child's care. No change was possible; the complaint was referred back to the psychiatrist and things got worse. Complained to hospital management about cruel behaviour by a psychiatrist Complained to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) about the psychiatrist and the hospital mentioned above No tailored response; I received a template email explaining that they have discretionary powers (meaning that they choose what they will follow up on). Contacted Healthwatch, who are described as ‘Your health and social care champion‘ and I believe are somehow associated with the CQC They couldn’t help me and didn’t pass any information to anyone else. I called them 3 times and they told me that someone would call me back but no one ever did. Wrote to the (former) CEO of Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust This was 2 CEOs ago now, following a series of changes there. After a delay of several months, I received a response that I found defensive. Wrote to my MP My MP has written to the same 2 Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust former CEOs on my behalf, and I found that the responses that both men wrote to the MP were dismissive. The MP didn’t seem to have the authority to do any more and suggested that I write to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO). Wrote to the PHSO After a delay of several more months, I received an unhelpful response with several inaccuracies from this organisation. The response failed to address my concerns and placed too much emphasis on how it all made me feel, rather than on the substance of my complaint. This link is to an article about an interview that The Guardian newspaper conducted with the outgoing head of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman in March 2024, where he expresses his views about his experience of interacting with NHS managers.

Waiting time targets in England 2025 for children with anxiety, depression, eating disorders and psychosis. Waiting time targets for mental health conditions in children NHS England is, according to Wikipedia, part of the Department of Health and Social Care. It oversees the planning and day-to-day operation of the commissioning side of the NHS in England. In February 2015, NHS England published a guidance document: https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/iapt-wait-times-guid.pdf setting out targets for the regional NHS Trusts to work towards in the area of access to psychological therapy (for all ages). In July 2015, NHS England published a guidance document: https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/cyp-eating-disorders-access-waiting-time-standard-comm-guid.pdf which sets out targets for access to treatment for eating disorders in children and young people under 18. In 2016, NHS England introduced guidance for early intervention in a first episode of psychosis. This link is to a guidance document providing implementation advice to NHS Trusts for meeting the targets in this area: https://www.england.nhs.uk/mentalhealth/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2016/04/eip-resources.pdf If your child was referred to NHS Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) for mental health support during the last several years (since 2016), it’s my understanding that the following will have been the applicable guidelines: If your child was referred to CAMHS for mental health support during the last several years (since 2016), it’s my understanding that the following will have been the applicable guidelines: Suspected condition Psychosis (for all ages 14-65) Eating disorder (for adolescents up to age 18) Other condition requiring psychological therapy (all ages) View Comparisons Target time from referral (from GP, school, self-referral, or other) to assessment and start of treatment US Maximum of 2 weeks from referral to start of treatment, for a first episode (assessment and start of treatment must take place within those 2 weeks.) Assess risk over the phone within one day of a referral. If the risk is ‘high’, a clinic assessment must be offered within 5 days. If the risk is classified as ‘routine’, a clinic assessment must be offered within 4 weeks. Assessment within 6 weeks and start of treatment within 18 weeks. Source of this information Implementing the early intervention in psychosis access and waiting time standard , NHS England, Version 3, 16 Feb 2023, Version 2 Dec 2020 Access and Waiting Time Standard for Children and Young People with an Eating Disorder , NHS England, Version 1.0, July 2015 Care Quality Commission Brief guide BG012: CAMHS waiting times V4 , August 2019 My child’s experience on the waiting list bore no relation at all to the relevant target. In addition, when we got to the top of the list, the attitude and reactions of the staff we met suggested that they were insufficiently aware of the importance of early intervention. A summary of the waiting times for Oxfordshire compared with the rest of England is available on the following link:

An Oxfordshire parent provides links to affordable online and in-person resources for teenagers' and adults' mental health support Reduced cost counselling in Oxfordshire or online - for children and adults (last updated 14 January 2026) www.riversidecounsellingservice.co.uk is a charity based in Henley-on-Thames, RG9. They provide counselling and psychotherapy at rates which they describe as ‘affordable’ to adults and children from age 12 who live in Henley-on-Thames, Wallingford, Berinsfield, Didcot and the surrounding areas. I couldn’t find any indicative fee levels on the website however. The counsellors are all qualified psychotherapists. www.thehelphub.co.uk is based in Woodstock and offers low-cost face-to-face and online counselling for adult residents who live close to Woodstock. Their website currently (Feb 2025) states that the fee is £40 for a 50-minute face-to-face session. Some of the sessions are with trainee therapists, but the initial appointment would be with a qualified therapist. Your employer may offer an Employee Assistance Programme. I’ve read hundreds of psychotherapists’ profiles to find resources to include on this website and have noticed that many qualified and experienced therapists and counsellors with years of varied experience state that they work or have worked for these programmes. These would provide support to the parent rather than the child. Reduced cost counselling available online (last updated 14 January 2026) National Low Cost Counselling is a not-for-profit initiative - https://www.lowcost-counselling.com/ - based in Leamington Spa and available online. The fee level is indicated as £15 - £25 for a 50 minutes session. Counsellors are close to completing their professional training, or have qualified but are not yet accredited. Each therapist is supported in their work by an experienced qualified supervisor. Low cost online resources for mental health support (last updated 14 January 2026) https://solihullapproachparenting.com is an NHS service which was established in 1996 and parents anywhere can access it online. The organisation was first developed by health visitors and is now also staffed by clinical psychologists and other professionals. They provide information for parents with children of all ages up to 18. They provide online resource packs, accessible through their parent portal https://inourplace.co.uk/ . The following courses have been developed by teams of clinical psychologists: for adults: Understanding your relationships (11 modules of 20 minutes each for £24) and Understanding your own trauma (11 modules of 20 minutes each for £25). They offer a course for parents called Understanding your teenager’s brain (9 modules of 20 minutes each for £9) and a course for teenagers called Understanding your brain (9 modules of 20 minutes each for £9) and another called Understanding your feelings (8 modules of 20 minutes each for £8.50) and others. KindleKids is a company founded by a London-based Chartered Clinical Child Psychologist who has put together several pre-paid online courses for parents of children between ages 4-16, available for a fraction of the cost of the equivalent time in one-to-one meetings. She is offering an 8-week programme of access to video recordings and worksheets, designed to equip parents with skills and confidence to support their children when they are experiencing difficulties, for £180. The programme is called the P sychology O f W ellbeing & E motional R esilience (P.O.W.E.R.) and includes modules on (1) Essentials of Emotional Wellbeing, (2) Thinking about Thinking, (3) Overcoming Anxiety, (4) More on Anxiety, (5) Unravelling and Understanding Anger, (6) Building Confidence and Resilience. (7) Social Skills and (8) Parenting and Understanding Behaviour. There is an option to purchase this course and also to book a 30-minute 1:1 Q&A session with the Psychologist, for an additional £90 (so, £270 for the 8-week course plus one individual session). Still with KindleKids , there is also a similar course tailored for parents of a child on the autism spectrum : an 8-week online course, plus 2 live workshops, for £199 and also, separately, a one hour-long recorded video and worksheets to download, on the subject of Understanding and Managing Overwhelm , which costs £29.50. The University of Oxford’s Department of Continuing Education offers some online and in-person courses in Psychology and other subjects aimed at increasing Wellbeing, which are open to anyone aged over 18. A summary of the courses can be found at https://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/search#/courses?s=psychology&sort=relevance . The formats range from online flexible (subscribe and complete in your own time), online live (at fixed times), one-day in-person workshops or weekly in-person 2-hour sessions in Summertown. https://www.aspergerexperts.com/ is a website, as mentioned on the 'free resources' page here, whose founders are young adults all on the spectrum themselves, and some have studied psychology. They emphasize learning how to feel better or help someone else feel calmer, rather than trying to teach ‘coping skills’. They offer courses for parents and young adults, starting from US$147, which includes a recording based around approximately 6 hours of PowerPoint-type presentations and a transcript. You also get access (included in the cost) to twice-weekly live call-ins with a psychologist for the duration of the course (5 weeks) and if you can’t access all or any of the calls (they’re on the US west coast), they will email you a recording.

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