Families have told us that that they haven’t always felt heard or seen by Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). This has been particularly difficult for those who have lost a loved one through suicide, or who feel they have received inadequate support. 

Platfform knows that sharing stories in a safe way can be part of healing. People often feel more powerless in systems where they cannot share their experiences, or be heard.

By reading your story, and sharing it with others (if you would like us to), we hope to show what actions could be taken to improve mental health systems. (Please note we are only considering policy change in the context of Wales at this time.)

If you are aged 18 or above, we would like to hear from you about your experience of the mental health system in Wales. 

What are the aims of this project?

To gain a shared understanding of the lived experiences of either accessing Child & Adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) in Wales or supporting a young person to access it.  

What’s the approach?

• To support families to feel seen, heard and understood. We know that making sure these stories are heard can be the heart of the healing process after difficult experiences.  

• To understand families experiences of CAMHS, and getting their perspective on the mental health system.  

• To identify potential practical recommendations to be made to improve systems. Your stories allow these recommendations to be based on evidence and compassion, rather than assumptions and shame.  

• To generate conversations that encourage connection in the mental health system, sharing “messages rom the heart” that young people, parents and carers want the system to hear. 

What’s the process?

This project will have two stages:

1. We invite you to fill in the survey and share your story below, which will help us gather a wide range of experiences from across Wales. Extracts from this survey will be published on our website – this is to help raise awareness of the research, and to allow people’s stories to be heard.

2. We aim to interview about 20 people who have responded to this survey and who would like to share their story in more depth. Please note you will need to tick that you consent to be contacted for this, and we cannot guarantee that we will contact everyone.

How will my story be shared? (if I agree that it can be)

We hope to publish as many stories as possible on the campaigns section of our website –https://platfform.org/system-change/truth-project/. 

Stories and themes will be shared in the public domain, with policy makers, and other key stakeholders to support the aims above. Stories may be edited to reflect the Samaritans safeguarding guidance for writing about suicide.

Publication can be anonymous, or you can be named. We ask that stories do not identify any individual or organisation other than you, the author (if you would like to be identified). You can contact us on commsteam@platfform.org to change or remove your story at any point. We are only able to remove stories from our own website or social media, not where they have been shared by others