The number of children and young people (CYP) awaiting support from Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) reached an all time high in 2023 (NHS Digital, 2024), calling for a need to support England’s mental health teams, and specifically to take pressure off waitlists. Through collaboration with the Suffolk CAMHS service managers and the CYP Clinical Lead for Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Board, Kooth has developed and co-designed an Integrated Digital Pathway (IDP): ‘My Support’.
‘My Support’ is specifically designed to support Early Intervention (EI) CAMHS waiting lists with immediate and rapid support options, with professional support accessible outside of working hours through text-based chats or asynchronous therapeutic messaging. As a wrap-around the professional support, there is a well-established virtual community of peer-to-peer support and self-help tools.
The pilot offers three main forms of support:
● ‘Keeping Well Support’ which incorporates an asynchronous messaging service as
well as a number of self-directed tools.
‘Structured Chat Intervention’ through which CYP are offered up to 8 weekly chat
sessions with a named practitioner.
‘Safe Crisis Management’ which ensures robust safeguarding procedures alongside
collaborative risk escalation and management.
The aim is for the CYP who use ‘My Support’ to achieve recovery and discharge following an episode of care through this pathway.