 On June 17, an enthusiastic audience welcomed Mark Conway who presented his absorbing and informative talk entitled `An Introduction to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service` (Specialist CAMHS). Mark is a Schools Link Pilot Manager and Specialist CAMHS Clinician and he explained the work of the service, which offers an assessment and treatment service for children and young people experiencing moderate to severe mental health difficulties.
Interacting with the audience, Mark offered many opportunities for the meeting to speculate at facts and figures relating to mental health in the UK, before surprising many with the actual statistics. His own speciality lies with Eating Disorders and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The service consists of a range of teams and specialist functions and has three main bases – Wells, Yeovil and Taunton and provides many services, including: Assessment and diagnosis, care planning, therapeutic treatments and therapies and medication advice and prescribing. As a multi-disciplinary service CAMHS draws on a large raft of expertise including: psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, nurses, support workers, occupational therapists, psychological therapists including family therapists and art therapists, primary mental health link workers, and specialist substance misuse workers. In a setting where we have seen one in ten children and young people aged five to sixteen suffering from a diagnosable mental health disorder the audience heard how referrals to CAMHS increased by 25% in four years. These referrals may be made by a wide range of professionals including Health Visitors, Midwives, GPs, School Nurses, Counsellors and Therapists including the majority of the audience attending the talk. Mark punctuated his talk with anonymous anecdotal patient accounts which emphasised the importance of the work of CAMHS. A warm round of applause followed the vote of thanks given by TAP council member Ian Stevenson. Mark has kindly provided a link to his presentation HERE, to CAMHS eligibility criteria HERE and 'What makes a good CAMHS referral' HERE The next talk will be on the 16th September at the Friends Meeting House, when Nick Turner talks on Sex Addiction and Porn. All are Welcome. David Trott Tap Council Member
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 On October 16 a substantial audience welcomed Andrew Newton-Cox, who presented an absorbing and informative talk entitled `Tales from a specialist eating disorders unit’ which was based on Andrew’s first hand experiences with patients within his unit. The audience heard how 725,000 people in the UK currently suffer from eating disorders, the most prolific being Anorexia Nervosa which involves deliberate weight loss.
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