Mental health and young people

I am passionate about young people's mental health. I know a lot of great people doing some wonderful work in this area. However, we need much more investment in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and better prevention, education and support across the entire community (including those young people who do not meet the threshold for CAMHS services). Early intervention is the key.

Education, support, information and awareness

Dorset Mind

I am proud to serve as Patron for Dorset Mind, who provide mental health support for children and young people through Dorset Mind Your Head . This exciting programme provides resources, information, support (including free counselling services) and education.

Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition

It is my honour to be a member of the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition (CYPMHC). The CYPMHC brings together leading charities to campaign jointly on the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people. Our current Chair is Sir Normna Lamb. At any one time, 1 in 10 children and young people have a diagnosable mental health problem, and it is well established that most adolescent and adult mental illness can be traced back to childhood. Addressing issues early helps individuals and society – that message needs a powerful voice.

​DorPIP

In some cases, poor mental health in young people may be related to difficulties encoutered by their parents during pregnancy and in the year or so fater the birth. You can read more about those conditions, and the work that I do to address that on the perinatal mental health pages. This is also relevant to the work I undertake with DorPIP, a charity that helps parents negotiate the transitition into parenthood and provides therapeutic intervention for the parent-infant relationship. I am a Trustee for DorPIP.

Fixers

In June 2015, it was my honour to link up with Fixers, an organisation devoted to young people who 'use their past to fix the future'. There are local Fixers groups all over the UK. In their own words, "Fixers choose the issue they want to fix and, using the skills of a team of creative experts, they work out how to make sure their message is heard by the right people, whether that’s through a unique film, a leaflet or poster campaign, a website, an event or workshop".  I was invited to work with the Winchester hub to contribute to a project that was developed by 'Cerys', a young lady from Bournemouth with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Cerys made a documentary about young people's mental health. Fixers then came to Bournemouth University to talk to me and my psychology students about the film. This was made into a feature that was shown on ITV Meridian News on June 4th 2015.

Research

I have been involved in some research with young people’s mental health. In one project, we explored ways to tackle behavioural, emotional and social difficulties in young people. This work was undertaken in collaboration with Future Roots (who operate a care farm project in north Dorset) where young people with a range of challenging behaviours, are referred. This work was conducted through a (now completed) 3-year PhD project. I was the lead supervisor on that