11 June 2026
A crisis and intensive home treatment service has provided crucial mental health support for more than 250 young people and their families since opening a year ago.
COAST (Crisis Outreach Acute Support Team) offers a crisis response and intensive specialist care in the home environment, ensuring that young people receive the right support at the right time, while remaining in familiar surroundings.
Developed by Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust (SPFT) and the Southern Counties Provider Collaborative, COAST has helped to prevent unnecessary hospital admissions and enabled early discharge when a young person has required hospital.
The service has treated 40 young people at home and, there have been 220 young people referred for crisis response since June 2025.
COAST was co-produced with Experts by Experience (EBEs), along with SPFT staff. One EbE, Dulcie, said: "It is so much easier to transition back into normal life if you can be treated at home.
"You can still receive intensive support but be able to sleep in your own bed, eat with your parents and not be around others who are also ill."
Amy, a mother of a boy who was recently discharged from COAST said the service changed her child's life.
"COAST has been life changing and I don’t say that lightly," she said. "My son is a completely different person. He was barely able to leave the house earlier this year. He has made such huge progress since being part of this service."
Nicola Chainey, Head of CAMHS Acute and Eating Disorders, said:
"I am incredibly proud of the staff in COAST, who have successfully embedded a new model of care centred on personalised intensive support for young people and their families.
"This includes help to remain in education. By providing specialist care wherever young people live, COAST enables them to stay connected to their families/carers, friends, and local communities. This approach is supporting better outcomes and promoting young people's recovery."
The service, launched in April 2025, introduces a new way of working with a joined-up approach to crisis and intensive home treatment. There is an overarching multi-disciplinary team offering treatment via evidence-based care pathways to very unwell young people who might otherwise need to be admitted to hospital.
The aim of COAST is to provide an alternative to inpatient care for young people experiencing severe mental health difficulties. Interventions are delivered at home - in the community, clinic and/or telephone-based services for young people and their families.
Some EbEs, along with staff members, have made a video about helping to inform the creation of COAST through their own experiences.
Dulcie featured on a BBC South East programme about Coast here
For more information call the Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust press office on 0300 304 0664 or email media
