CAMHS Single session Intervention
Project overview
The waiting times for accessing Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) has increased, with some young people waiting up to two years to be seen.! We know that for some young people, there are benefits young people can get from being seen in just one session.
During this project, Dr Nicola Evans (Cardiff University) and Dr Sarah Parry (University of Manchester) and their research team will do the early work needed to find out how a single-session intervention could help children and young people referred to CAMHS. In the future, we will use this information to plan a larger study to design and test the new intervention.
There are different ways to run single-session interventions. We don’t know what makes them work well or if they are acceptable to young people, their families or carers, and the professionals who work in CAMHS. The project will run for one year.
For more information about CAMHS, and the work they do click here.
Project details
The mental health of children and young people is a major public health concern. The research in this area points to increasing rates of young people developing and managing mental health concerns as well as a substantial increase in the number of referrals to CAMHS and waiting times to be seen.
The aim of this research is to improve the experience of children and young people referred to CAMHS with mental health concerns. The current situation of excessive wait times for an assessment followed by a further wait for treatment or intervention has negative long-term consequences for the psychological, social, educational and emotional development of children and young people. There is significant evidence that early intervention for mental health issues improves outcomes.
In the future, we will do a larger study to find out when and where our new single-session intervention works for young people and how we can improve it.
We will involve children, young people, parents, and healthcare professionals in the development of a single session intervention. We will form a Young People’s Advisory Group (YPAG) and a parent/carer stakeholder group. One of their key roles will be to share thoughts on what an acceptable single-session intervention might contain, and what outcomes they are think are important to measure.
Throughout the project, the YPAG will be involved in an initial review of the current data on single session interventions and making sense of the review findings, developing a survey and engagement sessions for other stakeholders. The YPAG will also be involved in developing a single session intervention and larger future study and the sharing of the findings from this study to help create a new model for single session interventions that are appropriate and effective.
Please get in touch with [email protected] for more information on this project.
Project resources
Patient and Public Involvement in Research, Why Not?
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