CHRIS (Co-ordinated Help and Risk Intervention Service)

Find out what types of mental health interventions the CHRIS team offers and how a child/young person can be referred to this service.

This webpage has been co-developed by the young people participant panel from NSFT.

Please note: CHRIS is a crisis specialist service and requires a referral from a practitioner.

What services does CHRIS provide?

CHRIS is a mental health support service, which offers short-term support to Children and Young People (CYP) under 18 and their families who are high risk of going into crisis without support.

We work with young people under two pathways, direct and consultation pathway.

For the direct pathway, we work with child and young people, and at times their family, for up to 6 weeks. We will complete an assessment with the young person, and from this a plan will be created for support. Please refer to FAQs for further details of what this work will look like.

Under the consultation pathway we will work with the existing professionals involved with the young person to better understand what isn’t working and what might help to make this better.

The views of the young person will always be at the centre of this meeting and included in the discussion.

The young people and their family will always be made aware of this meeting and the recommendations will be shared and agreed by the family, following the meeting.

Whilst we understand what defines a crisis will be personal and individual to the person experiencing this, the definition of crisis for our service is when a young person cannot cope/manage anymore, and they do not feel safe within themselves.

Referral criteria

Young boy walking on a rocky road

CHRIS supports children and young people who experience the following:

  • Distress beyond their level of coping related to a mental health need
  • Concerns around a young person safety towards themselves or others
  • Young person who would benefit from a short term focussed intervention to bring them back from their level of distress, alongside current support being provided by professionals
  • In which a young person may need an individual approach to engagement. For example to be seen in their home.

To access the service the child/young person must have an allocated key worker from core Suffolk County Council and/or NSFT teams. Please refer to the FAQs for what constitutes as a key worker.

CHRIS supports children and young people aged up to 18 years old, registered with a GP within East and West Suffolk and residing in Suffolk.

The team

The team is formed of clinical psychologists, mental health nurses, family therapists, social workers, outreach workers and business support officers.

How we work

Art of the CHRIS team dropping resources by helicopter

CHRIS’ hours are Monday – Friday, 8am – 8pm.

There are duty workers available from 8am - 1pm and 3pm – 8pm on weekdays. 

These hours are for children/young people and families who already work with the service under a direct pathway, to be able to seek advice if their CHRIS allocated worker is not available.

The Duty Workers can be contacted via the Duty Line: 01473 265499. 

Duty line can be also called upon by professionals to discuss a possible referral to the CHRIS team, and for guidance regarding risk of harm to self and others, alongside supporting with safety planning, around suicidal ideation and self-harm.

Children/young people and their carers will be contacted within one working day from the referral being accepted at the latest.

People who are concerned about their mental health and need immediate help for their safety can contact the NHS Crisis Support Line at any time by calling 111 and choosing option 2.

How to make a referral

Art of the CHRIS team handing out resources to people

All practitioner referrals will be made by email, on a referral form, to ensure the relevant information is known to CHRIS.

Referrals will be accepted within the duty hours and will be screened initially by the CHRIS duty worker.

All referrals are discussed at the Multi-Disciplinary Team Monday-Friday. The outcome of the discussion will be communicated to children/young people and families, and the referring practitioner, within one working day. 

Privacy Notice

Please refer to this page regarding the Children and Young People Services Privacy Notice to find out what information the service collects and uses, as well as your rights regarding your information.

FAQs