My daughter has been off school now for 8 consecutive days.

On the second day I told the school that she was refusing to come to school.
And again this week I told them this.

However over Easter my wife went to the doctors and my daughter has been referred to CAMHS. Is my daughter then absent due to medical reasons now or is it still refusal ?

Personally, I think school refusal is a medical reason.
You have done all the right things -
Informed the school of the situation, arranged a referral to Cahms, and then updated the school again by asking someone to contact you.
Do you have any written correspondance between you and the school? Even if this is in the form of email. My advice is to keep a record of time, date and who you spoke to whether it be a school secretary or teacher - get their names and keep the information. The same with Cahms. Make sure everything is put in writing. This way you can prove you are doing everything in your power to communicate and ask for help and therefore are not keeping your child off school for any other reason and she is certainly not truanting.
Does Marie open up to you and let you know how she is feeling? This is not easy to get the child to do. Just keep letting her know that you love her and want to help her. Could you phone cahms again and ask to speak to a psycologist directly for advice. If you pester enough they might see you earlier. Or maybe see if your GP might be able to give cahms a call and speed things up.

Penny x

Hi Daz

I agree with Penny, I would pester CAMHS, tell them it is at crisis point and that you need an appointment sooner, unfortunately, this is the only way to go. There is no easy way to sort this out, it is going to be a long process, you just need to be there for your daughter, to talk when she wants to talk, to hold her when she wants a hug...........you don't know what to do next.........she is only a child, she doesn't know why these things are happening and she is scared. We tried all emotions, shouting, that only made things worse, punishments, that only made things worse, It was only when I took a step back, tried to be more understanding and talked more to my son, that things started to get better. I knew from the night befor what kind of day we were going to have and wheter my son would make it into school, thats something you will learn as well, on these days now i don't even try to get him to school, I know he wont go and he feels bad enough about it without me pushing him and making it worse, I think it has helped us both.

My heart goes out to you, but things will get better, and you are not on your own.

My son is sitting with me reading this at the moment, he has just given me a hug, thats worth more than anything I can say

Take care
Dorothy x

Hi Daz,

I just want to say 'ditto' to everything Dorothy said ...... every word is true as you will realise as time goes by.

You are not alone.

Sue x