Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services Evidence-Based Practice Unit (CAMHS EBPU)

CAMHS Evidence Based Practice UnitThe CAMHS EBPU is an academic unit that is part of University College London (UCL) and the Anna Freud Centre.

Established in January 2006, the unit aims to develop and disseminate information about the latest research relating to helping children and young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties, and their families.

The unit actively seeks to promote outcomes-based and evidence-informed practice. This involves advising child mental health professionals about the strengths and the limitations of the evidence base, and about how to use routine outcome evaluation to reflect on and improve practice.

As such, the unit aims to help professionals in developing the best practice methods possible. The unit is also committed to helping children, young people and their families in choosing the help that is right for them.

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Research

Targeted Mental Health in Schools - Evaluation Project

The CAMHS EBPU has just won the tender to lead a major 3-year research project exploring the impact of the government initiative to provide targeted mental health in schools across England. This research is being undertaken in collaboration with colleagues at Durham University, the University of Manchester, the University of Leicester, University of York and the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London. The project is funded by the Department for Children Schools and Families (DCSF) and starts in April 2008, continuing to April 2011. To read a DCSF article on the larger project click here.
STOP PRESS: We are currently recruiting for Research team job vacancies - click here for details.

Improving links between child mental health and education systems

The CAMHS EBPU is involved in a collaborative research project looking at how to improve links between education systems and child mental health providers. The project is Department of Health -funded and is due to last 3 years starting in 2007. Professor Panos Vostanis of the University of Leicester leads this research.

Publications

Drawing on the Evidence: Advice for child mental health professionalsDrawing on the Evidence: Advice for child mental health professionals(2006)

A booklet that explains the latest research in this area to busy practitioners to help them make appropriate treatment choices. 10,000 copies have now been distributed across the UK and beyond.

Click here to download a PDF version of Drawing on the Evidence

Please note that there are no more hard copies available. However, please feel free to download and distribute the PDF version.

Choosing What's Best for You: What scientists have found helps children and young people who sad, worried or troubledChoosing What's Best For You: What scientists have found helps children and young people who are sad, worried or troubled (2007)

A booklet that explains the latest research in this area to children and families to help them make treatment choices. More than 18,000 copies have so far been distributed across the UK and beyond.

STOP PRESS Nov 07: Following feedback, a small number of specific amendments have been made - Click here to download the November 2007 re-issue PDF of Choosing What's Best for You.

Click here for information on the November 07 amendments.

Click here for further information about how the booklet was developed and how you can inform the development of future editions.

New orders: UK statutory services can order up to 50 copies for free. Larger orders can also be made, at £100 per 100 copies. To order, please email your name, organisation and postal address to ebpu@annafreud.org quoting "Choosing What's Best for You". Commercial organisations and those from outside the UK should also contact us at the above email address with any enquiries about the publication.

We continue to welcome comments and feedback, which will be considered when we undertake a review of Choosing... in July 2008 .

A Mental Health Care Pathway for Children and Young People with Learning Disabilities: A resource pack for service planners and practitioners (2007)

A resource pack for services to help them become more accessible to children with learning disabilities.

Click here to download the full Resource Pack.

UK government-funded services or charities can order up to 30 hard copies for free. Please contact us if you would require more. To order, please email your name, organisation and postal address to ebpu@annafreud.org quoting “LD Resource Pack”.

Mental Health Care Pathway for Children and Young People with Learning Disabilities - PowerPoint version

CAMHS LD Care Pathway powerpoint version For the abbreviated, interactive PowerPoint version of the Care Pathway click here.
To save this PowerPoint presentation to your computer for adaptation for local use, right click over this link and select “Save Target As…”  (Each step of the Care Pathway has a hyperlink which clicks through to further information - to activate the links open this PowerPoint file in Slide Show mode).

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Training courses

Outcomes-Based Leadership in CAMHS

The first CAMHS Service Improvement and Leadership Course (SILC), a short course held at University College, London (UCL), was completed in January 2007. It was attended by managers in the NHS to help them develop services that best meet the needs of children and young people with mental health difficulties. Its successor course, re-titled Outcomes-Based Leadership in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, started in October 2007. If you wish to be notified about future courses, please contact us at ebpu@annafreud.org to add your name to our mailing list. CLICK HERE for further information about the Outcomes-Based Leadership course 2007-08.

UCL Postgraduate Certificate/Diploma/MSc
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and other Outcomes-Based Interventions with Children and Young People (CBTOBI)

We are delighted to announce the launch of new courses in September 2008 which provide training for professionals in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and other Outcomes-Based Interventions with Children and Young People. This initiative is in partnership with the Department of Clinical, Educational & Health Psychology at UCL and Islington PCT CAMHS. CLICK HERE for more information, including a course brochure and application information.

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Informing service development

Promoting routine outcome evaluation

CAMHS Outcome Research Consortium (CORC)The CAMHS EBPU works closely with, and supports the work of the CAMHS Outcome Research Consortium (CORC), which is an independent membership organisation. CORC is also based at the Anna Freud Centre, and aims to set up systems to evaluate outcomes across child mental health services. Several members of staff work part-time for the CAMHS EBPU and part-time for CORC. Click here for more information.

Advising on information systems for CAMHS

The National CAMHS Dataset (NCDS) was originally disseminated in 2004 via CORC and the National CAMHS Support Service. This dataset identifies the key elements or information fields that services need to collect electronically, in order to develop a meaningful care record for children and young people with mental health problems. The NCDS was further developed during a CAMHS EBPU-led project in 2006, one of a number of Do Once and Share (DOAS) projects commissioned by the NHS.

Informing the development of accessible services

Another 2006 Do Once and Share project developed a model of a care pathway for children and young people with a learning disability and mental health needs. See Publications above for the Resource Pack which has been developed out of the project.

Click here to link to further documents relating to both the above Do Once and Share projects.

Advice and collaboration with other bodies

The unit offers advice when requested to the Department of Health, the Department for Children, Schools & Families, and other national and international bodies as required. It looks to form good collaborations with other relevant organisations.

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About the CAMHS EBPU

Director: Dr Miranda Wolpert (3 days a week)
Research Fellow: Dr Sevasti-Melissa Nolas (3 days a week)
Unit co-ordinator: Jonathan Bureau (3 days a week)
Information Officer: Paula Lavis (1 day a week)
With additional help from occasional interns.

The CAMHS EBPU reports to a Board within University College, London, currently comprising of:

  • Professor Peter Fonagy (Freud Memorial Professor of Psychoanalysis and Director of the Sub-Department of Clinical Health Psychology, University College London)
  • Stephen Pilling (Director, Centre for Research and Effectiveness (CORE), University College London)
  • Professor Tony Roth (Joint Course Director, Doctoral Course in Clinical Psychology, University College London)

Aims and aspirations of the CAMHS EBPU
Although we are a small unit, we are ambitious in scope and our aspirations include the following:

  • To present research-based evidence with a tentativeness appropriate to the limitations of the findings
  • To present the evidence in ways that can best interface with natural ways people take on new knowledge (this may include detailed exploration of the best ways to present and share information in this area).
  • To encourage practice that incorporates an appropriate awareness of the complexities involved in using evidence and outcome data to inform practice.
  • To examine the evidence base for a range of phenomena (including service design issues i.e. not just a focus on clinical interventions as such)
  • To look to draw on a range of academic specialisms including cognitive psychology, sociology, systems theories as appropriate

Ethos of the unit

  • All research is provisional
  • All research raises as many questions as it answers
  • All research is difficult to interpret and to draw clear conclusions from
  • Qualitative research may be vital to elaborate experience, suggest narratives for understanding phenomena and generate hypotheses but it can't be taken to prove anything
  • Quantitative research may be able to show hard findings but can rarely (never?) give clear answers to complex questions

And yet, despite all the challenges, it is still worth attempting to encourage an evidence-based approach, since the alternative is to continue to develop practice based only on assumption and belief.

CAMHS Expert advisory group
We are grateful to the following who act as part of an advisory group to the CAMHS EBPU:

  • Dr Richard Bartholomew (Chief Research Officer, Department for Children, Schools and Families)
  • Dr Michael Clark (Research Manager, Care Services Improvement Partnership)
  • Professor David Cottrell (Professor of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Leeds)
  • Professor Robert Goodman (Professor Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London)
  • Sir Muir Gray (Director of Clinical Knowledge, Process and Safety, NHS Connecting for Health)
  • Sir Michael Rutter (Professor of Developmental Psychopathology, Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Centre (MRC), Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London)
  • Andre Tomlin (Director of Knowledge Services, Centre for Evidence Based Medicine, Oxford)

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Contact

For more information on the work of the unit please contact:

Jonathan Bureau
CAMHS EBPU Co-ordinator
University College London & Anna Freud Centre

Email: ebpu@annafreud.org
Tel: 020 7443 2218

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