Although care-experienced young people often have significant mental health needs, research shows they often struggle with access to mental health services and are not offered best-evidenced interventions.
Shaping Futures Together is a new online training resource to help improve mental health support for children in care.
The resource, led by the UK Trauma Council, aims to empower commissioners, decision-makers and leaders across mental health and children’s social care. It gives them the tools to advocate for and build evidence-informed mental health provision for care-experienced young people.
The free 3-module training is available through the UK Trauma Council website. It has been developed in collaboration with care-experienced young people and over 100 cross-sector commissioners and decision-makers.
The training builds on the ADaPT project, supported by four NIHR Applied Research Collaborations (ARCs), including ARC West. ADaPT focused on understanding strategies to improve access to best-evidenced trauma-focused mental health interventions for care-experienced young people.
The new resource:
- Provides accessible information on what is meant by ‘evidence-based practice’
- Encourages development of shared evidence-driven language around trauma and mental health
- Supports collaborative evaluation and improvement of mental health services
The modules include videos and downloadable handouts.
Rachel Hiller, Professor of Child & Adolescent Mental Health at University College London, who leads the project, said:
“We know that care-experienced young people have much higher rates of mental health difficulties than other young people. We have best-evidenced treatments for these mental health needs that are often not provided to this group.
“ADaPT showed that one of the barriers to access to best-evidenced mental health interventions was how we commission services and confusion between sectors around needs and treatment.
“We hope these resources can be used by commissioners, decision-makers, and leadership – across children’s social care and mental health services – to encourage collaborative and joined-up working that is driven by best-evidenced practice. Care-experienced young people deserve this.”
ADaPT and the resources were supported by NIHR ARCs North Thames, West, South West Peninsula and North East North Cumbria.
This article originally appeared on the NIHR ARC North Thames news site: New resource to help transform mental health support for children in care
Image: Etienne Girardet