Camden mosaic

For:

Children, Young people

Available in:

Camden

We help people with

What we do

Camden Mosaic is part of the integrated children’s service in Camden.

Mosaic is made up of a collection of different teams that work together to support children and young people, and their families, who have neurodevelopmental differences (such as autism) and / or intellectual disabilities. The mosaic CAMHS staff are employed by Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust and work in lots of these teams in partnership with other Trusts and Camden Council to offer integrated services for children with disabilities and /or neurodiversity.

Some of the specialist teams that come together in MOSAIC are:

• Child development team (CDT) (CAMHS staff work within CDT with children under 5)
• Child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS) (specific emotional and psychological well-being support for children from 0-18)
• Social communication assessment service (SCAS) (CAMHS staff support the specialist multi-agency assessments undertaken by SCAS)

The services within mosaic provide assessment, diagnosis and therapeutic intervention from a range of professionals from health and social care to create a ‘team around the child’. 

This ‘team around the child’ might contain some of the following professionals: paediatricians (children’s doctors); psychiatrists; clinical and educational psychologists; speech and language therapists; occupational therapists; physiotherapists; family therapists; psychotherapists; dietitians; key workers and social workers.   

We have high aspirations for the children, young people and families we work with.  Our services aim to help children and young people to join in with all aspects of school, leisure and community activities, and support their independence and involvement in all decisions that affect them, preparing them for adult life.

Where we think a child may be at risk of harm, we have a legal duty to carry out enquiries to assess the child’s wellbeing.

What to expect

You will be invited into Kentish Town Health Centre for your first appointment. We call this ‘the assessment’ appointment. In the Health Centre you will meet two members of our team. They will ask you about your child’s home life and school life. You can tell them about things that are going well for your child, things that are not going so well, and any worries you have.  

Sometimes there are things that parents want to talk to us about without their child being present. If everyone is comfortable with this, one member of the team might take your child to another room and have a chat with them alone. The other member of our team will stay with you and listen to your concerns. We want to make sure that everyone feels like they have been heard.

We aim to meet you and your child for the first appointment within six weeks of you accepting our offer of the service. We can arrange for an interpreter if you need one (you don’t have to pay for this). We are also able to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate your child’s difficulties.

After the appointment we will write a letter summarising what we discussed.  As a team we will come up with a plan together of what to do next. We will send you the letter and we will ask you to check and confirm that you think the plan will be helpful. If you are happy with it, we will send this letter to the referrer and other relevant professionals (e.g. school, GP, paediatrician).

The plan we decide on may involve going on a waiting list for further input.  In some cases, we recommend you go to another service. 

If problems are urgent and there is a high level of risk, you will not be asked to wait.