Children's mental health and neurodiversity

Within Cumberland, and Westmorland and Furness there are a range of services which provide support for children’s mental health at the Universal and Targeted levels.

Your local Family Hub or school mental health lead will be knowledgeable in how to access support.

Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS foundation trust (CNTW) provide the Specialist Children and Young People’s Mental Health services for those young people

  • aged 0 to 18 years
  • who live in North Cumbria
  • are experiencing severe persistent and complex mental health disorders that have not responded to previous targeted intervention

Our specialist services work with the local targeted services to support young people to receive the right level of care at the right time. For additional information on our specialist services please visit the CNTW website.

Within the specialist children’s mental health service these are the pathways:

Children and young people's (CYPS) crisis


The Children’s Crisis team in North Cumbria is for young people experiencing acute mental health distress such as:

  • a severe deterioration in their mental health disorder
  • or significant concerns regarding severe risk to self or others

The Crisis Pathway provides:

  • mental health and risk assessment
  • safety planning
  • and follow up

The service can be contacted on freephone 0800 652 2865 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Specialist child and adolescent mental health service

Specialist CAMHS provides mental health assessment, diagnosis, formulation, and treatments for a range of severe mental health disorders. Working as a multidisciplinary team young people’s care packages are tailored to their needs and interventions are guided by the relevant National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines.  Referrals can be made by any professional involved in the young person’s care.

Community eating disorder service (CEDS)

Our CEDS provides specialist assessment and NICE concordant treatment for children and young people (referrals up to the age of 18) who are struggling with:

  • Anorexia Nervosa
  • Bulimia Nervosa
  • Binge Eating Disorder

Referrals can come from any professional and recent physical health information is required for the team to triage the referral. Where there is a presentation of:

  • eating related disorder where the physical presentation suggests a possible risk to life
  • or severe physical impact

Urgent admission to an acute paediatric ward should be sought in addition to referral to specialist CEDS.

Children's neurodiveristy

Children's learning disability

We are able to offer a service when a child or young person requires specialist support arising from their Learning Disability and its impact on their health. We often do this by working to advise parents or other health professionals working with the child.

We work with:

  • children aged 2 to 18 years with evidence of global developmental delay (aged 5 years and under)
  • or a presumed/diagnosed learning disability (aged 6 to 18 years), who require specialist support beyond mainstream services (for example, Health Visitors, Children’s Centres, etc)

Referrals to the team are accepted from any parent, carer or professional working with a child, young person or their family. Referrals are accepted by email, telephone or by post.

Children's early intervention behaviour support

We are able to offer early intervention support through a group-based approach to learning for parents and carers of:

  • children aged 2 to 11 years who have evidence of a diagnosis of autism and require early intervention support

Parenting a child with neurodiversity involves a complicated set of emotions, tasks and skills. Our programmes and workshops aim to provide support based on theory, research and experience of what works best. The programmes/workshops we offer are:

  • National Autistic Society (NAS) EarlyBird Programme
  • NAS EarlyBird Plus Programme
  • Introduction to Behaviour Workshop

Referrals can be made by any professional involved in the young person’s care.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

The ADHD service provides:

  • specialist assessment
  • ADHD diagnosis
  • and if required medical treatment

The ADHD Parenting Group provides time limited post-diagnostic support to families and carers to support their children with ADHD. Referrals can be made by any professional involved in the child’s care.