Psychological Medicine Service for Children, Young People, and their Families - Information for Parents

The aim of this leaflet is to inform you about who we are and what our service can offer you.

Who are we?

We are a team of clinical psychologists, psychiatrists and counsellors, family therapist and a youth worker working alongside the medical teams in the hospital. We are here to listen to you and your child about any concerns or worries you have.

What do we do?

We help children, young people and their families to cope with some of the difficulties that can come from having a medical condition and/or its treatment.

At the first appointment we will begin to get to know each other. We will listen to what your concerns or difficulties are. We will talk about whether there is anything we could work on together to make things better. We will then decide together what the best next step is. We may decide to meet for more appointments so that we can offer support or strategies to cope, or it could be that we only need to meet once.

What sorts of areas can we help with?

The list below is just some of the areas we can help you with:

Managing feelings

• Coping with feelings about illness, including feeling different, which can interfere with friends, school, everyday life and treatment

Managing a medical condition

• Managing symptoms such as pain, tiredness and other bodily changes
• Dealing with the effect of a condition on your family and child’s life
• Helping with problems such as eating, sleeping and getting on with everyday life

Treatments

• Coping with treatments that you might feel worried or stressed about; for example, needles and blood tests, taking tablets, having surgery and other medical procedures
• Helping you understand and manage your treatment

Who will have information about your family?

We think it is important to keep what you say to us private (confidential). There may be some information that it would be useful to share with your child’s school or medical team so that they can help you as much as possible. We will agree with you what information we will share and with whom.

How can you make an appointment?

You can speak to anyone in your child’s medical team to request a referral to our service. Sometimes there may be a wait to see a clinical psychologist, psychiatrist or counsellor. If so, you will receive a letter confirming that you are on a waiting list, and you will be contacted as soon as an appointment is available.

Further information

You can find out more about our service on our website, which is: Psychology Children's Service (opens in a new tab)

Our contact details are:

Administration Team for the Psychological Medicine Service for Children, Young People and their Families, Tel: 01223 216 878

PALS: To make comments or raise concerns about the Trusts’ services, please contact our Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS). Ask a staff member to direct you to PALS or:

Tel: 01223 216 756, Email PALS