Ethical and legal challenges within children's mental healthcare: Part 2 – decision-making, consent and capacity

There are many ethical and legal challenges posed by making decisions with and about children and young people in relation to their mental healthcare within CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services).

This module will concentrate on issues such as:

• whose consent we should seek,
• what we should do when decision-makers disagree,
• how we can assess capacity to consent,
• what laws we should act within when assessing and treating children and young people.

In Part 1: duty of care and rights we considered:

• to whom a duty of care is owed,
• how we can balance children and young people’s rights and their parents’ rights.