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 both with mental health presentations (including serious self-harm and complex needs) and we also offer specialist Low Secure Services for young people with learning disabilities, autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs) and additional risks and complexities.

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, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and psychodynamic psychotherapy
• 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 music therapy
• A comprehensive education programme in our Ofsted-registered school
• 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 escalate in their risks and become ‘stuck’ within inpatient settings
• 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 can only be achieved in very limited circumstances.