Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health (EWMH) service referrals

How EWMH referrals are managed and information on Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service practitioners and the Children's Wellbeing Practitioner Programme.

If you have immediate concerns for a child’s mental health or safety, for example, there's immediate risk of harm to themselves or physical harm suffered – contact 999 or NHS 111 immediately.

Referrals to Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health (EWMH) services can be made by a range of agencies and professionals – for example:

  • GPs
  • Children's Social Care (CSC)
  • schools
  • health providers

How to make a referral if you are a professional

Please be aware that due to the current exceptionally high volume of EWMH referrals, we are experiencing significant delays in processing and confirming the outcomes of non-urgent referrals. We are working to resolve this as soon as we can and we appreciate your patience. Please do not repeat referrals previously made as this can cause further delays.

If you have concerns about a child or young person under the age of 18 who is registered to a GP in Croydon, you should submit a referral to the Single Point of Contact (SPOC) team and specify EWMH on the online form. 

Follow the step by step process to submit a referral to SPOC.

If you can't use the referral link to SPOC, you can also download and send us an EWMH referral form (Doc, 86 KB).

Please email completed forms to childreferrals@croydon.gov.uk.

How referrals are managed

Referrals for children and young people with emotional wellbeing and mental health difficulties are managed through Croydon's Single Point of Contact (SPOC).  

SPOC will then pass the referral to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) practitioners who are based in this service to manage.

Single Point of Contact (SPOC)

SPOC is the ‘front door’ to Children Social Care services. It is a multi-agency service which works with a wide range of teams and partner agencies to agree on the right support for children and families depending on their needs.

After expanding its remit to include emotional well-being and mental health, SPOC will now offer easier access to advice and targeted support for all emotional wellbeing and mental health concerns about children and young people.  

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) Practitioners in SPOC

CAMHS is the commissioned specialist child and adolescent mental health service for children and young people up to the age of 18 years old. CAMHS practitioners are co-located in the Single Point of Contact (SPOC) team. 

CAMHS deal with moderate to severe mental health or neurodevelopmental disorders resulting in significant functional impairment, that requires a high level of multidisciplinary assessment and/or treatment.

Children's Wellbeing Practitioner Programme (CWP)

The CWP programme is part of the national Children’s and Young People’s Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (CYP-IAPT) programme. It provides an early intervention service to those young people who would not previously have met the threshold for an emotional wellbeing or mental health service.

The team provides interventions for children, young people and their families who have mild to moderate emotional or behavioural difficulties.