In this Podcast Molly and Marianne are joined by Young People Leah and Sharmin, to discuss exam stress and surrounding issues.
Looking at their own experiences with exam seasons and their coping strategies, the CAMHS team and Young People explore available support, the importance of boundaries and mental health, as well as give advice to teachers and parents on how best to support Young People during these stressful times.
After a short break, we’re back! Join Niki, Chloe, Madie and Alex this episode for a conversation about living with anxiety. We discuss what anxiety is, what panic is, how it affects our lives and helpful ways to manage our anxiety.
In this episode we explore Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, commonly known as DBT. We are joined by Sue Hollingsworth who discusses the therapy from a professional perspective, and Chloe who shares her insights as a young person who has experienced the therapy. We talk about what the therapy involves, who might access DBT and the different, our experiences and how it compares to other interventions. This episode explores treatment options within our CAMHS service and our personal experiences.
Sue Hollingsworth- CAMHS Practitioner
Chloe – CAMHS service user
In this CAMHSTalk Podcast, our Service User Participation Lead Niki Scott talks to Lydia Rosseter from Cambridgeshire Community Services, Lisa Leonard, head teacher of The Chiltern School and Marcia McKnight from Central Beds Council. We talk about how co-production enables, empowers and supports better outcomes for children, young people, families and professionals in Central Bedfordshire.
Throughout lockdown, Bedfordshire and Luton CAMHS have experimented with running groups virtually. One of the most successful formats has been virtual group creative sessions. These have built on the principles of art therapy and brought young people together to make art via Zoom. In this podcast, the staff and young people involved in a group that ran at the start of the year discuss how the sessions worked and what we got out of attending.
In this episode, we talk about how some of our service users had the opportunity to work with IntoFilm, an organisation who ‘put film at the heart of the educational and personal development of children and young people.’
Over the course of 7 weeks, we attended film making workshops that taught us what is involved in film making, how to develop characters, write scripts and plan our camera shots to produce a film together about mental health. Not Alone follows 3 young people’s different mental health struggles, united by the fact they are not going through them alone. From exam stress, to anxiety, and fear of isolation: the young people all experience varied personal struggles and have different ways of coping. Through exploring these difficult feelings, they realise that they are not alone in these experiences. This film was made as part of the Into Film Moving Minds 2 Filmmaking Project. Young people aged between 11 and 19 were given the opportunity to work with professional filmmakers to devise and create their own short film.
Christmas is a time of celebration, a time where most families plan for weeks so that the two or three days of Christmas goes perfectly.. the perfect presents, perfect company and perfect food. Most of us look forward to this festive time, but for some, it’s filled with fear and anxiety.
In this episode, Nikki talks to Jay and Roshni, two of our service users talk about how celebrations such as Christmas, Diwali end Eid can be difficult for those with an eating disorder due to the strong emphasis on food and eating. Mark Taylor, a CAMHS Clinician and Specialist Eating Disorder Nurse joins the conversation along with Hope Virgo – a UK Eating disorder campaigner, author, public speaker advocate to share their knowledge and expertise. Hope leads the campaign to ‘dump the scales’ – a campaign to increase access to eating disorder services in the UK
This is a perfect opportunity to come listen in on the discussion and hear honest accounts of how such celebrations present challenges, how you can get your way through the day and how dinnertime bingo can get you through.. Yes.. I did say dinnertime bingo.. listen in to find out to learn about this and other tips for the day..
If you’d like to learn more about Hope’s campaign, find out about how you can invite her to speak publicly at your event, or learn more about her publications, go over to her website: http://www.hopevirgo.com/
In the second of this 3 part mini series, we continue the discussion..
Cultural diversity and access to services is an issue that is high on the agenda for CAMHS and there is no better way of understanding the needs of the BAME community than hearing directly from the young people that have accessed the service. Today, we are privileged to have four of our ex service users talk about judgement, understanding and how important it is for clinicians to be curious and open to challenging their own beliefs. We also are very happy to welcome Helen Anderson, a CAMHS Clinician based at the Bedford Clinic. Helen has joined the discussion today to further her understanding of the challenges and difficulties that our young service users experience and to discuss the changes that can be made to make the CAMHS service more inclusive and accessible to all.
Welcome back to CAMHSTalk,.. Today we’re continuing to explore how CAMHS delivers services during the COVID pandemic. Previously we spoke to Ross Truscott, General Manager of Bedford CAMHS about the service and some of the new developments – including self-referral and the new 24 hour crisis line. So to continue the conversation.. we’re going to take a look at the Luton service.. with Linda Hurst – General Manager for Luton and South Beds CAMHS and Marc Van Roosmalen – Consultant Clinical Psychologist and is also the Psychological Therapies Lead for Luton and South Bedfordshire.
In today’s episode, we’re continuing the conversation about mental health, lockdown and how to manage during this time.. There’s lots of information in the media about what we should and shouldn’t do.. we see statistics.. we’re given direction and advice.. sometimes it sounds clear to us, and sometimes it doesn’t… we see advice change.. sometimes on a daily basis and this can leave us feeling worried, scared or just plain confused.. but on a more positive note, we’re also hearing about new and inventive ways of living life.. people are coming up with ideas that we maybe wouldn’t have thought of before…so it’s true to say that there’s a mix of experiences that people are having about lockdown.
But there’s one aspect of lockdown that we’ve all had to do… We’ve all had to socially isolate and keep to social distancing… which means limited access to friends and family, and our normal ways of socialising are currently off the agenda.. As a result of this, we’ve seen an increased use of social media. Now, there are lots of us that would never have entertained the idea of talking on screen.. but suddenly we’ve all got to grips with video calling, texting and even learning new dances on TacTic (name changed for copyright purposes..!)
and no, the last bit doesn’t apply to me.
But for some of us, our usual ways of managing health, and in particular, mental health may have become difficult to access.. such as taking exercise, going out and meeting people.. and getting access to fresh air. For those of us experiencing this.., daily life can be difficult… and many of us have increased our use of social media to support our wellbeing. In today’s episode, we’re going to explore how to manage mental health within the current climate…and give tips on how to make social media support our wellbeing as opposed to making it worse.
Today we have Nikki Scott, who is the user participation lead for Luton and Bedford CAMHS and is also a co-host on CAMHS Talk. I’d also like to welcome Lawrence Chung who is on the NHS graduate programme and is working an Operational Lead for Bedford CAMHS.Also welcome to our service users, Jay and Gracie