Mental Health: Delivering Improved, Integrated and Accessible Services
- 27 February 2014
- 08:30 - 16:30
- Contact us for venue
The COVID-19 pandemic has compounded the likelihood of children and young people experiencing traumatic life events as more families are plunged into poverty, domestic abuse rises and more children suffer bereavements. YouGov conducted a poll of 4,000 children and young people on behalf of Barnardo's for the charity's report Generation Lockdown, more than two-fifths of respondents (41%) said they were more lonely as a result of lockdown, 38% were more worried, 37% felt more sad, 34% said they were more stressed and one-third (33%) reported suffering from a lack of sleep. Our seventh national CPD accredited conference will assess how the crisis' in children and young people’s mental health services have been compounded by COVID-19, identifying solutions and the transferable benefits provided by virtual platforms - such as streamlining access to clinicians, as well as benefits to CAMHS service providers, including strengthened multidisciplinary working as a result of more regular meetings between teams - that can be carried over to the post-COVID world; both for service users and professionals.
The programme will also equip delegates with knowledge of emerging trends in the interaction between online platforms for gaming, gambling and addiction in children and young people, as well as tackling issues with access to services, funding and legislating to support CAMHS and service users.
Conference delegates will take away the following benefits of attending:
This presentation will review the transferable benefits discovered by innovating in response to the coronavirus pandemic that could be carried over into the post-COVID world, both for service users - such as streamlining access to clinicians, as well as benefits to CAMHS service providers; including strengthened multidisciplinary working as a result of more regular meetings between teams, made more convenient by digital platforms. The Liverpool CAMHS Partnership is a collaboration between the NHS and third sector organisations including Barnardo's, the ADHD Foundation and Mersey Care Trust that has adapted to remote working to support children and young people with a wide range of needs, introducing a multi-stream of digital services that have been utilised by more than 800 children, young people, parents and carers since April 2020, including:
The Royal College of Psychiatrists have published a new report Technology Use and the Mental Health of Children and Young People backed by the NSPCC and YoungMinds, making high-impact policy recommendations to protecting children and young people’s mental health. The study looks at diverse types of interaction(s) with online resources and possible impacts on children and young people’s mental health, including exposure to bullying, exploitation, gambling or violent/graphic imagery; whilst contextualising the negative influences of tech in balance with the positive. The report contains recommendations for young people, parents, educators, clinicians and government, including:
Joe Rafferty, Chief Executive, Mersey Care NHS Trust (confirmed)
Dr Bernadka Dubicka, Chair of Child and Adolescent Faculty, Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) (confirmed)
Speaker TBA
Barnardo's (confirmed)
The UK's leading children's charity commissioned YouGov to conduct a poll of 4,000 children and young people aged 8 - 24 year's old across Britain, asking them: how did you feel during lockdown?
The charity is warning that lockdown(s) could have an impact on the metal health of a whole generation. This presentation will outline actions that can be taken forward from Barnardo's Generation Lockdown report to improve the mental health of children and young people after lockdowns.
In this talk Dr Wendy Sims-Schouten will focus on the challenges and opportunities when it comes to spotting signs of potential mental health issues in the primary school age group; acknowledging the voice of the child and parents, as well as developmental pathways and milestones. When we talk about mental health support in schools, most of us picture a teenager, and most of the training such as Mental Health First Aid is geared towards this age group. Yet, there are signs and symptoms of specific mental health issues at primary school and earlier on, even when children are in the EYFS [the early years foundation stage].
Getting involved early on with the right interventions, training and support for teachers, may mean preventing those signs from turning into diagnosable mental health issues. Moreover, Dr Sims-Schouten will highlight that if we fail to give children a method of expression, there is a danger that this will manifest itself as behavioural problems, with the child being blamed for their ‘bad behaviour’, receiving punishments rather than support. While teenagers may be able to articulate their feelings, younger children often cannot and sometimes they do not really understand what they are feeling, and it is more likely they will say they have a stomach ache or they are not feeling well. It is not the role of teachers to diagnose mental health problems or attempt to "fix" them. Yet, spotting early signs and communicating about any concerns with parents is essential. This also means a need for more training and support for teachers.
The acknowledgement that, where there is inter-parental conflict, whatever work is done for the child will be undone if there is significant inter-couple conflict, led to the opening of discussions between Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust and local charity Tavistock Relationships around the idea of attaching couples therapy to children and young people’s mental health services. Since 2017 the couple’s therapist has delivered more than 300 sessions to parents of children who have been referred to CYMPHS. For some of these cases, the dysfunctional parental relationship was the primary cause of the children’s presenting symptoms. For others, the child had difficulties of their own, e.g. ADHD, depression and anxiety but the parental difficulties were either getting in the way of their treatment or exacerbating the symptoms. In some cases the child’s chronic illness had caused the parental conflict, which was then keeping the child stuck in a negative cycle and impeding recovery.
Both the psychiatrist leading the multidisciplinary team and also the social worker in the service found that having a couple therapist with psychoanalytic training and perspective was invaluable in helping parents reflect on the nature and quality of their relationships, as well as enabling the service as a whole to think about couple dynamics from a psychoanalytic perspective more often and in a more thorough way. Promisingly, outcomes for children (as well as parents) were very good, with reductions in children’s mental health problems and behavioural issues, and many of the cases closed as a result of this intervention.
We'll be working with venues to ensure lunch at our events is as delicious as ever and caters for a range of dietary preferences - whilst being served in a safe and seamless manner. Some of the new measures we will be introducing to this effect are:
Where possible, we will request food is sourced locally to reduce food miles, use seasonal vegetables, red tractor certified meat and eggs from free range hens.
Speaker TBA
In response to the dramatic rise in young people disclosing struggles with problematic gambling (55,000) and more young people regularly gambling (450,000) than taking drugs, drinking alcohol or smoking according to the Gambling Commission, the NHS introduced 14 clinics delivering support to those struggling with problematic gambling and a specialist treatment centre for those addicted to gaming. Lockdown(s) have significantly increased opportunities for children and young people to engage with digital platforms that utilise 'loot boxes' - randomised prizes that can be purchased in-game - and other tools encouraging risk-taking and associating it with reward.
NHS leaders have called for restrictions on games that encourage children to purchase ‘loot boxes’, as well as introducing realistic spending limits and supporting parents by raising awareness of the risks associated with gambling and in-game purchases. Drawing from the Gambling Commission’s report that portrayed the rise in child gambling as a ‘generational scandal’, this presentation will assess the impact of lockdown on young people's interaction with problematic gambling; in the context of a new report published by OFCOM in which 3,200 young people between the ages of 3 - 15 were interviewed, demonstrating that 50% of the UK’s 10-year-olds owned a Smartphone in 2019, 21%, 71% of 12 – 15 year-olds have a social media platform and 24% of 3 – 4 year-olds own their own tablet.
Megan Highcock, Project Co-Ordinator, West Ham United Foundation (confirmed)
Hannah Prytherch, Clinical Psychologist, Adolescent Mental Health Team, East London NHS Foundation Trust (confirmed)
Delivered in partnership between East London NHS Foundation Trust, North East London NHS Foundation Trust and three London-based football community foundations - West Ham United Foundation, Arsenal in the Community and Leyton Orient Trust - Advantage is an innovative new mentoring programme for young people aged 14-21 years whose mental health and wellbeing has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Advantage provides young people with a dedicated mentor who works with them to set goals and help them get back on track to achieve and aspire in the new normal.
Elaine Tabony has a background in paediatric nursing. Transferring her skills to the community as specialist community public health school nurse, Elaine was awarded the title Queens Nurse following an innovation award introducing the Seasons for Growth Grief Education programme. Currently, Programme Lead for Specialist Community Public Health Nursing at Brunel University London, Elaine was the first person to introduce the Seasons for Growth Grief Education to schools in England. Seasons for Growth Grief Education support children and young people following any significant loss such as death, separation, and divorce. Based on the belief that grief is a normal and valuable part of life, need is recognised to provide the opportunity to examine how grief, because of significant loss has impacted on our lives. Seasons for Growth provides the opportunity for each participant to integrate the appropriate knowledge, skills, and attitudes to understand and to cope with loss and grief. This takes place in an atmosphere of like- to- like peer support rather than a ‘one-to-one’ process.
Megan Highcock, Project Co-Ordinator, West Ham United Foundation (confirmed)
Hannah Prytherch, Clinical Psychologist, Adolescent Mental Health Team, East London NHS Foundation Trust (confirmed)
Elaine Tabony, Lecturer Practitioner for Health Visiting, School Nursing and Occupational Health Nursing, Brunel University (confirmed)
Speaker TBA
This slot is reserved for organisations looking to engage delegates with services and opportunities that compliment conference presentation and discussion panel topics. If you're interested in delivering a Case Study, contact us on 0161 376 9007.
Emma Thomas, Chief Executive, Young Minds (confirmed) and/or Nick Harrop, Head of External Affairs, Young Minds (confirmed)
The NHS cannot meet the scale of need for CYPMH support on its own, it is crucial that more consideration is given to early interventions within our communities. Young Minds undertook the Early Intervention Review to identify the characteristics of effective early interventions and inform its recommendations to government on introducing a national, cross-departmental commitment and strategy to address childhood adversity and trauma. The review assessed existing models of early interventions in the community in the UK and abroad to identify the impact(s) of different service models, as well as working with young people and parents to develop principals of best practices. This presentation will make high-impact recommendations for the development of effective early interventions in the community.
Jeff Smith MP, Chair, All Party Parliamentary Group on Mental Health (invited)
Cllr Harpreet Uppal, Councillor, Kirklees Council (confirmed)
Manjul Rathee, Chief Executive Officer, BfB Labs (confirmed)
This panel is where the programmes, digital adaptions and ideas discussed at conference converge with the pragmatism of making policy. Panellists will cover issues raised in the agenda as well as drawing from experiences of making policy, working with influential bodies and driving the cutting edge frontier of digital innovation in CYPHM, including:
Vicky Ford MP, Minister, Children and Families (invited)
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