CAMHS Is Broken: The Data Now Proves It

The data now proves what lived experience has long revealed; CAMHS is failing by design, not by accident.

When I wrote “CAMHS Nearly Killed Me (And It’s Not Okay)”, I wasn’t being metaphorical. It was a direct account of how Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) can harm the very people they claim to help. My experience of dismissal, invalidation, and institutional hostility is now echoed in the data from the CAMHS Survey 2024 confirming that thousands of Autistic and otherwise neurodivergent young people are being failed in the same ways.

The numbers and stories converge on one clear truth; CAMHS in the UK remains unfit for purpose. It’s not just under-resourced, it’s fundamentally misaligned with the neurodivergent experience.

We are currently conducting a new survey for 2025, please complete the survey by clicking on the button below.

CAMHS Waiting Times and Dangerous Thresholds

The 2024 CAMHS Survey found that long waiting times and restrictive access thresholds are the top barriers to support. Families reported waiting months or years for assessment and treatment, often being told their children weren’t “ill enough”.

That phrase haunted my own experience. I was turned away repeatedly until I reached crisis point. The system’s obsession with risk management ensures that help only arrives when it’s already too late.

The data makes this explicit: “Risk thresholds were seen as dangerously high, meaning families were denied help until a young person was in acute crisis”. Every word of that sentence mirrors my lived reality.

The Culture of Parent-Blame and Mistrust

One of the most disturbing findings in the survey is the ongoing culture of parent-blame. Parents advocating for their children are too often met with suspicion or safeguarding investigations. Instead of being treated as partners in care, they’re treated as potential threats.

This toxic culture of control isn’t new. My own family faced hostility when we tried to get support. The report’s evidence of safeguarding overreach exposes a system that punishes advocacy rather than valuing it, a hallmark of institutional ableism and a major driver of trauma.

Professional Incompetence and the Pathology Paradigm

The CAMHS Survey 2024 found that staff lack training in neurodivergence, trauma, and monotropism, the cognitive style typical of many Autistic people. This results in services that misinterpret difference as defiance.

I’ve lived this too. My distress was pathologised and my communication misunderstood. Instead of being supported, I was medicalised. The report confirms that CAMHS still operates through a pathology paradigm; framing distress as an internal disorder instead of a relational or environmental response.

To fix this, CAMHS must adopt neurodivergent-competent practice, recognising Autistic burnout, sensory overload, and environmental mismatch as core elements of mental health, not behavioural problems.

Autistic Burnout: A Crisis of Connection

One of the most important insights from the report is that Autistic burnout should be understood as a crisis of connection. This echoes what I’ve long written about; that burnout happens when an Autistic person becomes cut off from safety, belonging, and understanding.

CAMHS often intensifies this disconnection. Young people are labelled as “non-compliant” when they’re actually overwhelmed. I was told I was resistant to treatment, when in reality I was resisting harm.

True recovery for Autistic people means restoring connection, co-regulation, and access to flow, not enforcing compliance.

Failed by Design, Not by Accident

The CAMHS Survey 2024 concludes that young people “are not being failed by chance; they are being failed by design”. That statement should be a turning point in UK mental health reform.

CAMHS continues to prioritise risk management and control over compassion and accessibility. Services are built to protect the system, not the people within it. Reforming CAMHS means more than adding resources, it means rebuilding the foundations of how we understand and respond to neurodivergent distress.

We must replace gatekeeping with belonging, and pathology with partnership.

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Building Neurodivergent-Competent Mental Health Services

The report’s recommendations are clear:

• Embed neurodivergent competence across every CAMHS team, from triage to psychiatry.

• Reform access thresholds to allow early, relational intervention.

• End parent-blame and replace it with co-production.

• Create sensory-accessible environments for assessment and therapy.

• Ensure safe, supported transitions from CAMHS to adult services.

These changes align with what Autistic and neurodivergent communities have called for over a decade. Real reform starts with acknowledging that lived experience is expertise.

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From Data to Action

The CAMHS crisis is both personal and systemic. My story is one among thousands, but the data now validates what we’ve all been saying for years: this is not about bad luck or a few bad practitioners. It’s a system-wide failure.

Rebuilding mental health care for Autistic and neurodivergent young people means moving from pathology to ecology; recognising that wellbeing is relational, embodied, and ecosystemic.

If you work within CAMHS, education, or healthcare, you can be part of that change. My consultancy offers training, consultancy, and research rooted in lived experience and the neurodivergent-competent model outlined in the 2024 report.

You can also join my Mindfully Divergent Community, a wellbeing programme for Autistic adults seeking reconnection and recovery beyond the systems that failed us.

Don’t forget to complete this years survey to gather even more data!

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📄 Read the full report: CAMHS Survey 2024 – DGH Neurodivergent Consultancy
🌐 Learn more: dghndconsultancy.co.uk
📧 Contact: david@dghneurodivergentconsultancy.co.uk
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