FAQs

If you are in immediate danger please dial 999, or go to Accident and Emergency. If you are not in immediate danger but need help with a mental health crisis please call 0300 300 0099.

Forward Thinking Birmingham (FTB) is an innovative mental health service aiming to revolutionise care for 0-25 year olds across Birmingham. It's the first time a mental health service has spanned this age range anywhere in the country. It's designed to be easy to access, full of choice and well joined-up with other services. It also intends to increase awareness and reduce the stigma surrounding mental health in our communities, in order to help problems from developing in the first place.

Commissioned by Birmingham and Solihull Integrated Care System's Mental Health Provider Collaborative. FTB from the 1st July 2025 will be delivered by Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust, in conjunction with a range of experienced partners from the Voluntary, Charity & Social Enterprise (VCSE) and Private sectors.

Our Referral Management Centre can be contacted on 0300 300 0099. It can help you with advice, guidance and support on existing cases or potential referrals for 0-25 year olds. If a child or young person is referred to our services with needs that are not appropriate to the services we provide, we will contact you to explain why. At the same time, we will provide advice, help or support to access a more appropriate service.

These are some of the people who can be referred to Forward Thinking Birmingham's mental health service:

• - Children and young people up to the age of 25.
• - Anyone developing psychosis/hearing voices for the first time up to the age of 35.

Please note, we only accept referrals for children and young people who are registered with a GP Practice in Birmingham.

We currently do not accept self-referrals via the referral portal, but please do visit our information on Pause. Pause is a drop in service available to all children, young people, parents and carers residing in Birmingham. They can make onward referrals to us if they feel you need secondary care support.

For us to help the referred child or young person access the correct service as effectively as possible, it is vital that all sections of the referral form are completed. It is also vital that the correct legal parental consent is gained for referrals concerning children and young people under the age of 16, unless they are adjudged to be 'Gillick competent'.

The information on this form will be used to decide the best type of support for the person being referred and therefore this information may be shared with relevant services.

If you can, please provide as much information as you are able to. This helps us decide on the best support for the person being referred.

• Mothers:
  • - Birth mother unless child has been adopted.
• Fathers:
  • - Biological father of index child if married to birth mother (continues after divorce)
  • - Biological father who is not, or never has been married to birth mother, but child born on or after 1st December 2003, provided he is named on child's birth certificate.
  • - Biological father who is not, or never has been married to birth mother, but child born before 1st December 2003, provided he has a Parental Responsibility Order made by a court or a Parental Responsibility Agreement signed by the birth mother and containing court seal.
• Guardians and carers:
  • - Person named as child's Special Guardian in a Special Guardianship Order.
  • - Person named as child's carer in a Residence Order or in a Child Arrangement Order, provided child still living with the person at time consent sought.
  • - A Local Authority in whose care the child has been placed by way of an Interim Care Order or Full Care Order.

Please note:

• - These consent requirements may not apply in the event of a crisis or safeguarding event.
• - Young people under the age of 16 can consent to their own treatment if they are formally assessed as being 'Gillick competent'.

Collecting and storing information:

Information is collected about any person referred to our service relevant to diagnosis, treatment and care.

We store this confidentially in written records and electronically on computer.

Data sharing:

On occasion we may have to share some information with other people and organisations who are either responsible for, or directly involved in, supporting service users. This may involve taking information off site.

We may also have to share anonymized information for reporting or research purposes. Any information that is shared in this way will not identify the person referred you/your child.

Find out more:

If you have any questions and/or do not want us to share information with others, please talk to the person responsible for your or your child's care, or contact PALS (Patient Advice and Liaison Service) on 0121 333 8403.

We recognise that sometimes you want to give us feedback and that sometimes things can go wrong, which may make you want to complain or alert us to a concern. When we receive feedback, complaints or concerns, we will respond to these quickly and, where we can, put things right. In the first instance, please call the Referral Management Centre (0300 300 0099) and ask to speak to the Referral Management Centre Manager who will try and resolve your concern.

If they cannot resolve your complaint then please call our Patient Advice and Liaison Team (PALS):

On 0800 953 0045. There is a 24 hours answerphone service and the PALS Team aim to return your call on the next working day.

You can also contact PALS via email on bsmhft.customerrelations@nhs.net

For further information on how to give feedback or complain, click here.

If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) this is often caused because the browser being used is not supported by Microsoft any more (to read more click here).

The Secure Portal supports Microsoft IE 11 or above, Chrome, Firefox and Apple Safari.

To resolve this problem we suggest you use Google's Chrome browser. Most Commissioning Support Units (CSUs) or your IT department will support the use of Google Chrome.

RIVIAM's Secure Portal uses a certificate issued by GlobalSign to encrypt the data sent to your browser. Within your browser there are a set of what's called CA root certificates. These certificates are updated on a regular basis and if your browser is out of date you may get an error about certificates. Or it may say the site is unsafe.

To resolve this issue please ensure that your browser is up-to-date.

Yes, if you press the refresh button you will lose the information you have entered into the secure portal. We are going to change this soon, but for now if you refresh the data is lost.

Yes, once you have submitted a referral you will receive an email to let you know we have received and are processing your referral. This email contains a link which allows you to download the referral form for your records.

Yes, referrers can include documents such as assessment reports and clinic letters when completing the online referral form; they are also able to add additional documentation to referrals made previously.

Complete the online referral form and click on the attach documents' button. Follow the instructions that appear to upload a document.

Referrers will be able to provide additional information on top of what they have included when answering the online referral form questions; this means triage decisions can be made more quickly and accurately.

Referrers will more easily be able to provide additional information to support the referrals they make. This means that referrers will be contacted less by Referral Management Centre Staff wanting to gather the additional information needed to inform triage.

The Referral Management Centre team will receive more information which means they will be able to make quicker, more accurate triage decisions without having to chase people for extra information.

A maximum of 5 documents can be attached to each referral.

Each single document cannot be larger than 20 megabytes.

Yes, you can do this by clicking on the 'Attach documents to an existing referral' button and completing the simple web form.

We require referrers to complete the online referral form when submitting documents as this ensures we have all the relevant consent information we need to process the referral legally, it also helps ensure we collect the information we need to make a triage decision for the referrals we receive.