Low secure services – child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS)

We offer a service for young people who need an intensive therapeutic and rehabilitative programme in a low secure setting. Priory provides low secure services for young people with complex mental health presentations that may include serious self-harm and complex eating disorders. 

Our approach

Priory’s Low Secure Services have an enviable record of success with young people who have found it difficult to progress in other settings. A safe and nurturing approach underpins the treatment plan for a young person. Interventions may include:

• Specialist individual therapy using specific models such as schema therapy, and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) 
• Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) including weekly groups, top-up sessions, homework and ‘moment-by-moment’ coaching on the ward by nursing staff
• Family therapy
• A comprehensive rehabilitation programme led by our occupational therapy team, including building life skills in community settings
• Creative therapies including art therapy
• An expert multidisciplinary team led by a consultant psychiatrist
• Individualised nursing care plans and keyworker sessions
• Specialist assessments and regular Care Programme Approach (CPA) review meetings
• Comprehensive planning of discharge packages to maximise ongoing progress
• Social and recreational activities including physical exercise and sport

Who do we support?

Our Low Secure Services use an innovative and collaborative approach to work with young people who:

• Present with significant emotional difficulties and severe self-harming behaviours
• May struggle with dietary restriction and need nasogastric tube feeding
• May have escalated in their risks and become ‘stuck’ within an inpatient setting
• May have suffered major trauma and present with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), attachment disorder or an emerging personality disorder
• Need the safety of a secure setting

Referrals and admissions

This service provides specialist low secure inpatient treatment for young people referred from other inpatient CAMHS services, local authority funded children services or Tier 3 community services.

All referrals receive a full pre-admission assessment by members of the multidisciplinary team. All admissions are planned and emergency admissions are not generally available.