"Capable and kind staff took good care of our..."

When our child was placed at Ticehurst in the Garden Ward with one night’s notice, we were told by our CAMHS team that they had had positive results with a successful placement there. Relieved, we went online to see what it was like and didn’t sleep a wink - the negative reviews were frightening. CAMHS advised us to bring our questions to the Ward Manager, which we did, and he called to allay all our fears. Emphasis is on safety and having a good team of regular staff building good relationships with the young people. Treatment takes place in the form of one to one sessions with nursing staff and healthcare assistants, as well as with afternoon group sessions for the young people and OT, Physio and Psychotherapy sessions when required, as well as psychiatric input and medication. There is a school in which the young people can do their state exams if necessary and which works with the young person's school to get relevant work. WiFi and mobile signal are patchy, but there is a TV room with DVDs.

We arrived separately from our child and we met with the admissions staff, who were great both with our child and with us (we needed tea and sympathy too!) and were then present at the initial admission interviews - this way we were sure that the relevant information and backstory was all gathered by Ticehurst.  

The staff at Ticehurst are all experienced, kind and knowledgeable, and were reassuring and generous with our child and with us. They worked hard to get to know and to support our child in the midst of the crisis.

We visited Ticehurst twice a week and once at the weekend, this helped our child and also helped staff, who were able to talk to us about what was happening in real time and build a more rounded picture. We were also able to see how things were unfolding, and to feel reassured that they were doing everything in their power to help our child. It is interesting that a crisis can worsen on arrival at a unit - as novices we did not know that - but our child was supported with an appropriate level of monitoring and nursing support during this time and was helped to integrate with the other young people when ready. Every evening a member of the nursing team called us to let us know what had happened and there was no problem getting to speak to staff, they were very responsive. It is obvious that a young person in crisis may not like everything that is done to keep them safe - and this was the case at times with our child, but we felt that the staff did a great job in balancing the need for safety with appropriate de-escalation in the moments of the crises

On the day of the move, our child left lots of belongings behind, and staff went out of their way to return them to the new unit.

Our view is that the Manager of the ward and his staff are doing great work with the young people in their care, and we thank them for everything they did for our child and for us. The story is not over yet, but Ticehurst kept our child safe when we could not