If you’re a parent waiting or hoping for support from the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), you’re not alone.
It may feel like forever to get that CAMHS diagnosis in place, but there are many ways to support your child and take useful and practical steps in the meantime.
Whilst on the CAMHS waiting list, you can start helping your child today by using relational play to address your child’s needs and behaviour – no diagnosis required. Find out more about relational play and how we can help.
Waiting for CAMHS? Here’s how we can help.
Waiting for CAMHS support is a frustrating, exhausting situation to be in when your child needs help, and as a parent, you want to do everything you can.
At Beacon Family Services, we offer plenty of practical and immediate support for parents of neurodivergent children (diagnosed or otherwise).
While waiting for CAMHS, you can:
- Register for free for our online Connect for Parents workshops, available for any parent in the UK – these are open to all families, including those with neurodivergent children
- Register for free for our in-person Connect for Kids Theraplay® group sessions, available to parents in Birmingham and the West Midlands.
- Join our online dads support group (if you’re a dad anywhere in the UK, though we have a West Midlands focus)
- Self-refer for individual family therapy if you are based in the West Midlands and cannot access any other means of support. If you currently have the support of e.g. a social worker or Early Years family worker, you can also ask them to enquire on your behalf for funded family therapy and support.
- Access and use our free lumin&us® app while you wait.
Adoptive parents and special guardians
Did you know you can access support through the ASGSF? We are able to offer bespoke therapeutic support for adoptive parents and families. Our packages of support are tailored to your family’s specific needs, and our therapists will build a relationship with you as we help you nurture relationships with your child, so there is no one-size-fits-all approach.
This link to information on the adoption support fund will help you connect connect with your Local Authority for an assessment of need.
How does the free lumin&us ® app help while you’re on the CAMHS waiting list?
With the lumin&us ® app, downloadable for free from Google Play and the Apple Store, we focus on the here and now. Your child’s behaviour is telling you something about their inner world—whether it’s frustration, fear, or just a sense of being overwhelmed. This can be addressed through play.
Play is more than a distraction – it’s a powerful tool rooted in neuroscience. When children play, their brain gets a chance to calm and reset, helping them regulate big emotions and develop critical social skills. Relational play—play that connects you and your child—creates safety and trust, which are essential for emotional growth.
With lumin&us®, we’ve taken clinical research and made it accessible for families. Our free app helps you manage both your emotional state and your child’s, guiding you through playful, connection-based activities tailored to real-world parenting challenges.
These tools aren’t about fixing your child; they’re about helping you respond to their behaviour with empathy and connection—whether they have a diagnosis or not.
If you’re feeling stuck while waiting for CAMHS, try this: put down the worry and pick up the play. Even small moments of connection can help your child feel safe and secure—and remind you that you’re not powerless in this journey.
Join our online community for expert and peer support
You can follow our Facebook page and join our lumin&us™ Parent Support Hub Facebook group offering expert support and a safe place for parents and carers of neurodivergent children to connect. Parents in the Facebook group find our regular live sessions very useful in finding a fresh approach to navigating parenting challenges.
What parents say about our services:
“It has been good to think about support networks, and how that helps to reduce violent and aggressive behaviours, as well as increasing capacity to manage the situation.”
“A great opportunity to get together with other parents and care givers going through similar experiences, to hear how others are living lives like ours.”
“I never knew how much I needed this until I started, but knew I was burning out. I got so much out of it personally and lots to take away.”
“I have not just a greater understanding after this workshop but feeling that what we are living is real and not just our perception and that someone else gets it.”
About Beacon Family Services
Our organisation supports families like yours to develop, rebuild and repair relationships between parent and child using proven talk and play-based therapies, including Theraplay® and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP). Much of the support we offer families is fully funded at no cost to parents with thanks to our valued commissioners and funders.