Role: Clinical Director of Dumfries and Galloway CAMHS and NDAS
What I love about my role:
I have worked as a Clinical Psychologist in CAMHS across Scotland for most of my career.
I am relatively new into this post and am greatly enjoying starting the journey of continuing to develop the best CAMHS services that we can for children, young people, their parents/carers and the workforce that surrounds them.
As well as my leadership role, I will also continue my clinical practice as a Consultant Clinical Psychologist, mainly within our mental health service for Care Experienced children and young people.
Team Leaders
Michelle Currie
Role: Team Leader
What do you love about your role: Making a positive difference to the mental wellbeing of children and young people
Hazel Crawford
Role: CAMHS Team Leader
What do you love about your role: I loved previously being involved with families and young people in relation to mental health issues as a Primary Mental Health Worker with CAMHS, I also enjoyed working with partner services and facilitating training to professionals and families. Recently, I have moved into a management role which is tough going but very rewarding, particularly being part of such a dedicated, hardworking team
Alison Smith
Role: Team Leader
What do you love about your role: Meeting new people and working with young people to enable them to achieve their goals and seeing their confidence growing with the work they put in.
CAMHS Administration
Lynne McCulloch
Role: Admin Co-ordinator
What do you love about your role: Knowing that every day can be completely different from the last.
Emma Todd
Role: CAMHS Secretary
What do you love about your role: I enjoy being part of a great team working towards a shared goal of helping young people and families.
Lisa McWhir
Role: CAMHS Secretary
What do you love about your role: Working alongside a fabulous team of admin and clinical staff to help provide the best possible service for our children and young people.
Lucy McKinnell
Role: Admin Assistant
What do you love about your role: Working with a great team of people helping to make a difference for our children and young people
Consultants/Medical Team
Dr Laxmi Kathuari
Role: Consultant Psychiatrist
What do you love about your role: I love working alongside young people and supporting them to take control of their difficulties and shape their own futures.
Dr Jennifer Halliday
Role: I am one of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists in the team. I am a medical doctor so very much involved in assessing and diagnosing problems and prescribing medication when that is appropriate.
What do you love about your role: I love team working, sharing stories, and connecting with others.
Dr Chris Andrews
Role: Psychiatrist
What do you love about your role: No day is ever the same
Participation and Engagement
Alison Telfer
Role: I am CAMHS Participation Lead, I am a qualified Community Learning & Development Worker (CLD) and my background is within the youth work sector.
What do you love about your role: I love that every day is different. I feel very fortunate that I get to work alongside lots of amazing children, young people and their parents/carers in a variety of different groups and projects, where they are all making positive improvements to the service.
Specialist Roles
Karen Henderson
Role: Trainee ADHD Nurse Specialist
What do you love about your role: I am excited to help develop the ADHD pathway and hopefully make it better for young people and their families. I am also enjoying learning more and more about ADHD and supporting people find ways to manage their difficulties to help make day to day life feel a little easier.
Jane Reed
Role: Specialist Family Based Therapist/Eating Disorders Lead
What do you love about your role: What I love is working with children, young people and families to help them achieve their goals and increase their well-being.
Julie Stephen
Role: Dietitian
What do you love about your role: I love working with children, young people and their families to help them improve both their physical and mental wellbeing.
Primary Mental Health Workers
Margaret Baillie
Role: Primary Mental Health Worker
What do you love about your role: young people make me smile every day and hopefully the work we do can help them smile again too.
Michelle Johnstone
Role: Primary Mental Health Worker
What do you love about your role: I love being part of a team that are committed to making a positive difference to young people’s lives.
Lyn Manson
Role: Primary Mental Health Worker
What do you love about your role: I enjoy meeting all the children and young people either at their first assessment, or whilst delivering brief interventions for a variety of different issues. I feel privileged that people want to share their stories with me and allow me to support them towards their goals.
Karen Wells
Role: Primary Mental Health Worker
What I love about my role:I love working with children, young people and their families, helping them to achieve their goals. 🦄
Gemma Murray
Role: Primary Mental Health Worker
What I love about my role: I am passionate and care about trying to get things right for the young person at the earliest point possible. At first assessment, its really important to me to make the young person feel comfortable, safe and heard and to work together on deciding the best path to move forward. I get great job satisfaction when I work with young people delivering a brief intervention on anxiety, self-harm or low mood and get to see the progress they make each session whilst working towards achieving their goals. The development of the therapeutic relationship is also a huge part of why I love my job as I have always seen myself as a people person and really enjoy getting to know young people over the sessions. I strive to make a difference and always do my best to help young people if I can.
Joanne Hiddleston
Role: Primary Mental Health Worker
What I love about my role: I love being part of a team who are able to make a positive difference to the mental health of the young people who access the service.
Maureen Kelly
Role: Primary Mental Health Worker
What I love about my role: What I love about my job is working with children and young people to help them understand themselves better and go on to be able to do the things they want to do. Being part of a caring team who look after each other as well as all the young people they help by going the “extra mile” is fantastic. Great learning environment for a newly qualified mental health nurse.
Mental Health Workers
Kenny Sneddon
Role: Mental Health Worker, duel trained in Mental Health and pediatric nursing. Part of Category 4 Team, unscheduled care team, in the west of the region, when required and trained in Family-Based Treatment for young people with eating disorders.
What do you love about your role: Working with young people and their families, being part of a skilled and motivated CAMHS Team
Kevin Wells
Role: Registered Mental Health Nurse within the Unscheduled Care Team
What do you love about your role: The thing I love about my job is the opportunity to work with young people, families and those around them to support recovery.
Garry Morrison
Role: Mental Health Worker, RMN, for ISSU18 and CAMHS
What do you love about your role: Varied. Seeing small changes in perspective and behaviours making big impacts on confidence, composure and effectiveness in young people and their families.
Debbie Ewing
Role: Mental Health Worker with CAMHS west
What do you love about your role: Being able to help young people make positive changes to improve their mental wellbeing. We also have a fantastic team which makes going to work much easier!
Anna Tagg
Role: Mental Health Worker
What do you love about your role: is the amounts of random information young people know and feel the need to share!! Every day’s a school day in this job!
Chelsea Milligan
I am a registered Mental Health Nurse currently working as a mental health worker within the ISSU18 Team at CAMHS. My role involves supporting young people who have themselves experienced drug/alcohol misuse or who have been exposed to parental substance misuse within their lives.
What do you love about your role: I love that I get help and support young people through their recovery journey by helping them create their own individual path from uncertainty to a happier and brighter future.
Criston Eckberg
Role: Mental Health Worker
What do you love about your role: I love the opportunity to encourage young people to build coping mechanisms at an early age preventing them being involved in adult mental health services.
Emma Anderson
Role: Mental Health Worker in the Unscheduled Care Team
What do you love about your role: I love working with young people and that every day is different.
Mirjam Cunningham
Role: I am one of the Mental Health Workers, my back ground is in Art Psychotherapy.
What do you love about your role: I really enjoy working with children and young people, helping them express and explore their self, their experiences and their own thought processes.
Denize Whiston
Role: Registered Mental Health Nurse – Mental Health Worker
What do you love about your role:
I love working with young people in helping them to achieve their full potential especially given that young people/adolescents are often represented in a negative light in the press/social media. I enjoy the diversity that each day brings. I am also hopeful this role helps to keep me young at heart.
Lynne Smith
Role: Mental Health Worker in the Unscheduled Care Team
What do you love about your role:
Support Mental Health Workers
Andy Leyden
Role: Senior Support Mental Health Worker (SMHW)
What do you love about your role: Working alongside some amazing people and having the privilege to work with young people/families who come to our service
Katy Blackwell
Role: Support Mental Health Worker (West)
What do you love about your role: I love working as part of a close team, supporting Children, Young People and their families.
Julia McMurdo-Tait
Role: Support Mental Health Worker
What I love about my role:
I love meeting young people and their families and working together to make positive changes to support their mental health and wellbeing.
Working alongside a great team and meeting amazing young people are some of the best parts of my job. Knowing I can have a positive impact when supporting young people accessing Mental Health Services is a privilege and I hope to offer the most appropriate support to any young person I work with.
Lauren Teenan
Role: I am a Support Mental Health Worker within the CAMHS Team at the Willows.
What do you love about your role: My job role can vary, I may offer help and advice through therapeutic sessions to help young people who are suffering with their mental health. I love meeting new young people whether face to face or over the phone learning of their journey and being part of a team helping to improve their wellbeing in times of need.
Laura Leesing
Coming soon
Marie-Anne Hall
Role: Being a Support Mental Health Worker within Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service gives me the opportunity to treat, encourage and routinely access the Mental Health of Children and Young People
What do you love about your role: Being a SMHW within Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service gives me the opportunity to treat, encourage and routinely access the Mental Health of Children and Young People
Role: Team Leader
Role: Specialist Family Based Therapist/Eating Disorders Lead
